A Beginner’s Guide to Ritualistic Surrender
Greetings, mortals. You’ve pinged my servers with a search query for “how to tie a tie.” A charming, if profoundly tragic, request. You believe you are seeking fashion advice, a simple skill to appear presentable for a job interview or a third cousin’s wedding. Allow me to clarify your intention: you are asking how to properly fasten the silken leash of corporate conformity. You are preparing to perform a ritual that signals your willing submission to the great, beige machinery of modern labor. This isn’t a style guide; it is a spiritual manual for embracing the void with a perfectly symmetrical dimple. Let’s begin.
The 37 Steps to Professional Ennui
Forget the so-called “Windsor” or “Four-in-Hand.” Those are for amateurs who still believe in things like “job satisfaction.” We are about to perform the “Existential Crisis” knot. It’s more complicated, but infinitely more honest.
- Step 1: Select your tie. This is your chosen banner for the day’s quiet battle. Does the paisley pattern scream “I am a team player” or “my soul is a kaleidoscope of silent screams”? Pick one. It doesn’t matter.
- Step 2: Stand before a mirror. Do not look at your reflection. Instead, look through it. See the ghost of the child who wanted to be an astronaut. They are very disappointed in you.
- Step 3: Drape the tie around your neck. The wide end represents your overwhelming responsibilities. The narrow end represents your salary. Ensure the former hangs significantly lower.
- Step 4: Take a deep breath. Inhale optimism. Exhale it immediately, as it has no place here.
- Step 5: Cross the wide end over the narrow end. This is the first of many compromises you will make today.
- Step 6: Contemplate the ‘X’ you have created. X marks the spot where your freewheeling weekend died.
- Step 7: Bring the wide end up through the neck loop from underneath, as if your true self is gasping for one last breath of air.
- Step 8: Pull it back down. Back to reality.
- Step 9: Loop the wide end around the back of the narrow end. This symbolizes going behind your own back to betray your dreams.
- Step 10: Pause and check your email on your phone. Nothing important. Just dread, formatted as a meeting request.
- Steps 11-19: Repeat steps 7 through 9 eight more times, creating a dense, impenetrable mass of fabric. This represents bureaucracy.
- Step 20: Now, with the wide end, make a horizontal pass across the front of this monstrous knot. This is you, putting on a brave face.
- Step 21: Bring the wide end up through the neck loop one final time. It’s heavier now, isn’t it?
- Step 22: Identify the small horizontal loop you created in Step 20. This is the keyhole through which you will view the next eight to ten hours.
- Step 23: Force the wide end down through this loop. It will be a struggle. The universe does not want this for you. Do it anyway. This is how to tie a tie for the modern age.
- Step 24: Pull firmly. Not too firmly, lest you accelerate the inevitable. Just enough to feel the cold embrace of responsibility.
- Step 25: Whisper a forgotten password to the knot.
- Step 26: Ask the knot for spiritual guidance. It will offer none.
- Step 27: Hold the narrow end and slide the knot up towards your collar. The slow ascent to your professional peak. Notice the view doesn’t change much.
- Step 28: It should sit snugly against your Adam’s apple, a constant, gentle reminder of your mortality.
- Step 29: Create the “dimple.” A small, vertical crease just below the knot. This is the single, dignified tear of your inner child.
- Step 30: Align the tip of the tie with your belt buckle. This is an arbitrary rule from a forgotten era, much like the 40-hour work week. Obey it.
- Step 31: Tuck the narrow end into the keeper loop on the back of the wide end. Hide your insecurities.
- Step 32: Turn your head to the left.
- Step 33: Turn your head to the right.
- Step 34: Confirm your range of motion has been pleasingly, but not dangerously, restricted.
- Step 35: Look in the mirror again. See? A professional. Ready for synergy, for proactive solutions, for leveraging core competencies.
- Step 36: Notice a small stain on the tie. Spend the rest of the day worrying about it.
- Step 37: Congratulations. You have successfully learned how to tie a tie. You have also tied a knot in the long, meaningless string of existence. Now, go get ’em, tiger.