How to be pretentious

This is not an argument to own a fake Louis Vuitton Neverfull

at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus

First, a story:

For Valentine's Day, B scored some tickets to a concert in Opera Berlioz at the Corum. One of our yoga classmates Julia was in the band and had saved us some seats for the event. Despite living here for a while, I'd never set foot inside the building before, and I was excited to listen to the group play Brahms and Stravinsky.

As I listened to the orchestra, I couldn't help but zone out and recall the time when we were in Athens. B had also treated me to a date night at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, where pianist Alexei Volodin and the Athens State Orchestra (conducted by Lukas Karytinos) played pieces by Tchaikovsky and Bartok. There was something otherworldly to witnessing the sunset during the minutes before the performance and the symphony finally ushering the night, at a venue that was once declared the most majestic in all of Greece, and has hosted many major musical events (including performances by Maria Callas, Luciano Pavarotti, Elton John, and Sting.)

I love classical music in much the same way a White person would say they're not racist because they have insert non-White person as friends. I mean, I know Tchaikovsky and Beethoven, but I'd lose at Jeopardy if a category about them ever came up. As an obnoxious kid, I used to record music from this classical music radio station, simply because it felt, well, a cultured thing to do.

You could say that listening to classical music and going to concerts with only a passing and superficial knowledge is such a nouveau riche thing to do. Except my salary doesn't even allow me to claim that.

Maybe I’m just pretentious.. Which is…fine?

There were multiple times when I faked my way into circles I did not belong to. One evening while walking with my friend Maeve, I mentioned how, at an old job, public speaking used to terrify me. I was always so anxious about it I had to invent a persona in my head — a more extroverted, perkier me. I had to summon that other Evan to face people from the stage, and when it didn't suffice I had to rely on copious amounts of coffee (and sometimes beta-blockers.)

Some of the recurring themes in stuff I've written are my search for and struggle with identity and authenticity, and I suppose that those will continue to show up in future stuff, like guest characters I can't fire from the sitcom (or drama?) that is my life. It's not me hating previous iterations of my life that still drives me to constantly try things, even when those go against whatever brand I’ve (or other people have) fashioned of me. (I mean, sometimes it is hate, but not as much as before.)

I'd like to believe I've become more forgiving of my old me's decisions. I picked up an interesting idea (from a video I watched on YouTube) of trusting our old selves to have chosen the most logical path during that period. It might not look so logical now from our current self's vantage point, but our younger versions made do with their emotional and intellectual capacity.

We could also argue that there's nothing fake about reshaping ourselves because people are not one-dimensional and static. It's a tough realization to fully absorb since it's easier to pigeonhole people into cartoon characters. It can be unnerving and uncomfortable to imagine other people having such vivid and complex lives full of desires and dreams, brimming with hesitations and horrors that they balance every day.

Though I think of an old ex now and I remember how I cringed at how one day he suddenly developed a passion for musicals. I thought it was fake and couldn’t reconcile his obsession with pop culture and following the latest fashion trends with that new inclination. Deep inside, I judged that he just wanted to flex his new “high-brow” sensibilities. I suppose I should’ve been more forgiving back then. (Or maybe I just didn’t like him that much and I had stayed in the relationship too long even when it was already toxic for the both of us.)

Much like language, gatekeeping culture just doesn’t make sense if we want that culture to continue. And more often than not, it’s the outsiders who are keen to learn more about cultures they’re not part of. (Pinoys who speak better English than “native” speakers, and so on.) Sometimes these can lead to xenocentrism and the dilution or death of one’s cultural identity, but I think people should be allowed to explore cultural expressions even when they don’t necessarily end up as experts.

And before you say it, no, I don’t mean creating caricatures of anything is acceptable. And yes, I understand that power dynamics factors into how one can access culture and various other experiences. But it’s kind of like owning a fake Louis Vuitton bag, right? Sucks for LVMH and billionaire Bernard Arnault’s profits, but people wanting to flaunt a class AAA Neverfull means that the brand continues to be desirable. In the end, maybe we're all just trying on different versions of ourselves, hoping one will finally feel like the perfect fit.

(You own an LV?! Ugh, nouveau riche.)