be yourself

by phil on Tuesday Apr 18, 2006 1:03 AM

I flipped through my wardrobe and asked myself, "why do I have so many damn skater shirts?" I don't even skateboard.

I have snowboard-branded long-sleeve shirts as well. Yet, I barely snowboard twice a year.

I wear a beanie, yet I'm not tough.
I wear a tracksuit, yet I'm not a b-boy.
I wear black boots, though I'm neither goth nor hard.
I wear contact lenses, when I'm actually a nerd in glasses.

All of these things I sport because I think they look cool in-of-themselves. However, if somebody tried to get to know me, I'd be grossly mis-representing myself.

perception is reality.

If I go to a music festival, people might think I'm a music-lover. If I go to an a film screening, people might think I'm a cinefile.

Time to trash scenester ethos. Time to mold people's perceptions to match my realities.

Comments

ali g said on April 18, 2006 8:50 PM:

yo like, whateva.

Nicolas Dias said on April 30, 2006 6:13 AM:

Ah, the endless war between social classification and the need to be different.
Let me line something up for you. Whoever you are, people will try to classify you. They, being people who perceive you, can and will make a name for you, and anyone like you. Its a natural human defence to classify everything around you, hoping to understand and belittle other existences. I hope you understand what im getting at. It's funny how some try to escape classification, like goths etc, only to find themselves classified as something else

So here is something to think about: The person who isn't classified, who is completely seperate, would have to take elements of all classifications, and mix them, such as you have. In this way, anyone who looks at that person will try putting that person into a comfortable zone of classification, and fail, because you are everything, and yet not.
So here is to your individualism, to your daring to be different. You aren't misrepresenting yourself, you're throwing their perceptions out the window, and showing them what true individualism is.

Philip Dhingra said on April 30, 2006 10:38 AM:

Playing with classification is interesting.

There's a club in San Francisco called DNA Lounge that on certain nights is replete with goths. Around Nov. of last year, I tried to don the goth-costume. I wore black pants with light stripes, a nice black shirt with thick cuffs and thick collar, shiny formal black shoes, and, to boot, I let my lady-friend put eyeshadow on me. I completely fit into that scene on a superficial level, but I couldn't connect. Some girls kind of gave me "come-on" looks, but I knew my schtick would wear out eventually.

So recently, after this post was made, I went back to the DNA lounge and tried something different. I wore, actually, those same black pants and shirt, but this time I mixed a few elements. I wore these really funky blue shoes in order to convey that I had a touch of eccentricity (above beyond the eccentricity of being goth). I eschewed contact lenses for my glasses—I am a nerd. And I declined make-up—feminity or faux feminity doesn't fit my personality.

I was neither rejected nor accepted by the scene. I wasn't defiant of being goth—I was after all, wearing mostly black. Nor did I embrace their look completely.

It was hard dressing in precise representation of myself, but in the end, I belive, it pays. I knew myself better because I represented myself authentically.

Because I didn't feel the pressure to connect with others, and because others weren't connecting with me, then I started to realize a new thing about myself: I'm somewhat of a lone star. And while I'd rather be a social butterfly than a loner, at least now I can work with reality rather than fantasy.