Posers vs. Posers

I am a poser. There is another guy at work that I consider a poser. We are on opposite ends of the poser spectrum.

This other guy is trying desperately to portray a biker image. He bought a rigid bike at the height of the chopper craze and never rides it because it hurts his back. But he has several shirts proclaiming "Choppers Forever". While he has two electric start motorcycles and lives only a few blocks from work, he drives his truck every day. He brings his motorcycle and custom car magazines to work and scatters them around his work bench for all to see. He is a really nice guy, but he is not what he is trying to portray himself as.

I'm not really what I try to portray myself as, either. I may love my bikes and ride the hell out of them. I may love my old leather jacket with the spikes and studs and handcuffs. I may love my mohawk, piercings, and tattoos. To the world at large I may look like a punk rock biker delinquent. "Jake" is a character I've played so long now that he is indecipherable from "me". To the best of my understanding, Jake seems to make very deliberate choices about his appearance based not on gaining acceptance into a particular sub-culture, but on making certain that he does not fit into any of them. That seems like a bloody stupid thing to do, but I can't wait to see where it all leads.

So maybe it's all just a matter of who is the better actor. To believe that is just as pompous as believing I am a better brand of poser. No matter how I choose to look at it, I feel superior. Some days are like that. An alcohol binge ending with me hovering over a toilet puking my guts out is one of the few things that can kill the superiority complex. That has only happened once. On two other occasions I was outdoors and had no need for a toilet, so that made me feel superior again.

While pondering these things on my chopper on the way home, thankful that the rain storm I narrowly missed on my way to work had passed by for a dry ride, I came up with this simple line to explain it all. Because we all, deep down, love catch phrases that gloss over the pesky details of a much more elaborate reality. It sums up not just posing but all of what we could consider as modern cultural movements.

There are those who do it, and those who buy into it.