I was at a talk once during my first year of college wherein Maryland Representative Elijah E. Cummings counseled young African Americans to “fake it til you make it!” (As an aside, I should mention that I have very positive feelings for Mr. Cummings, very positive.) I was confused and horrified. Despite my own faking and non-making, as an 18-year-old, the idea of faking was odious to me. I mean, I walked around with a ponytail, Docs and philosophy books in my own efforts at faking and making. But I was too stupid to realize it then. Faking it? On purpose? What? Where’s the necessary connection between acting one way and then becoming it?
Well, I’ve learned a lot since then. I’ve read Existentialism (Sartre, Nietzsche, et al) and Pragmatism and learned all about how our actions play on our conceptions, metal states, personalities, identities, etc. I also pulled my head out of my ass and realized that our personalities do not define our actions so much as the other way around. Even moods. If you walk around bitching all day, you turn into a bitch.
In case you somehow missed it, I’m a moody man. Pessimistic. Nit-picky. At times depressed. In my defense, there are genetics (I don’t wanna talk about it) involved in depression and general gloom and resentment to a world that continually fucks us all over (don’t kid yourself).
But it’s also part of what has become my “image.” I’m critical. I have an opinion on everything, usually negative. You know, people are more likely to think you’re smart if you act like that than if you think everything’s awesome. Anyone can do that, right? And if you’re insecure and arrogant (you can be both), you just about need everyone to think you’re smart and good and valuable and fun to be around because the — at times — incredibly crushing things you say about people, products and situations tell people that you are witty and funny.
It also makes you a pain in the ass, as my wife reminds me.
With a little one on the way in six months, I think I’d like to learn to be more optimistic or, at least, less doomy and gloomy and hateful. I thought about it, and in some essentialist bullshit decided that it’s not in me. My blood comes from four grandparents. One was depressed and, well, lost it, but was otherwise by all counts a sweet person. (I don’t wanna talk about it.) One was a terrible father to my father and the biggest example of a P-word I’ve ever met. One turned out to be an evil bitch. One I never met but never heard anything bad about. My parents are very good people, but they each had one piece of shit to match their good parent, and my father’s mother died when he was nine. Any sunny outlook on their parts came from sheer will. So I should be able to do likewise, no?
How? Faking it? Maybe that’s bad terminology. Acting like the world doesn’t disgust me is probably more than faking. I mean, if we look hard enough, there are enough good things in the univserse that we don’t have to fake not wishing existence itself would cease, right? Whenever I see the ultrasound image of my child, I can’t be mad or upset about anything. I’m all smiles and giggles (yes, giggles, at work and on the bus), and I want to buy everyone a coffee and give them free hugs. So maybe it’s not faking it. It’s in selecting what to judge the world by.
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