You are not who you think you are...

There is a pretentious state — whether it's how someone exaggerates to impress their friends or a restaurant projecting it's own self-importance with superfluous decor and docents hired just to glare. It's obvious in much of museum culture and high fashion, sports, and of course, religion. I'm not saying that these functions are inherently terrible. Because I know at the core of many religions is the aim to live in harmony, and I've seen some great museums that want to build connection with people and the community (in fact, you can find this great TEDxTALK by Nina Simon on the MAH's philosophy). And I'm not saying that these functions are all-around great, either. These gatherings were founded to build connection and harness relationships, and sometimes, as a society, we lose focus of the goal. I find it useless to define things by a simple good or bad, by some basic morality imposed on them. I'd rather observe, than judge. So I've noticed that these cultures have a tendency to gather people with an attitude for proving they are better than others, people in the pretentious state.

A while ago, I did a piece on attitude. And I very much like the idea of exploring words and re-evaluating them in regards to our own pre-concieved concepts and social notions. So I think I'll do more pieces like this starting with this one....

What is the meaning of pretentious? According to The New Oxford American Dictionary - 3rd Edition, pretentious means "attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed". The key words are, greater importance. To be of greater importance is to suggest that there is something or someone that is of lesser importance. Usually when someone is pretentious, we tend to think that that person is trying to act greater than someone else. But I think, it begins with pretending to be greater than oneself, which is a terrible tragedy indeed (and I'll explain why further into the piece).

Now, I'd like to dive into the word, pretend. As noted by The New Oxford American Dictionary - 3rd Edition, pretend means "to speak and act so as to make it appear that something is the case when in fact it is not". I don't think it is mere coincidence that pretend and pretentious have similar letter arrangement. In fact, I believe pretentious is a branch from the word pretend. And I believe they're both derived from the prefix, preter- which means "more than". (This is mere speculation, so please let me know if you know otherwise). Independent of whether this is true, I do find the connections peculiar, and I'd like to discuss them further.

Both words require one to act as more than what is true about oneself. There are a many great pretenders out there. Many of whom pretend for a living, many of whom pretend in life, and some of whom say this life is pretend. No matter the walk of life, we have all encountered a state of pretending. For me, it was pretending to be a broadway singer as a kid (and even now) in the shower or doing funny impressions for my family. And we have all encountered the pretentious state. For me, it was dressing up in all black clothes and wearing dark sunglasses to "mystify" myself. Somehow I began this strange attempt to convince myself that I was cool and much cooler than everyone else.

This was a learned state because I was and am not naturally a pretentious person. I don't believe anyone is. At our essence, there's no need to impress anyone, not even ourselves. We are so encapsulated and in admiration of our process that we don't judge any part of it. We are all like kids, enjoying and being surprised by our abilities and growth as we go — making our family (the world) laugh with our loves and not expecting anything from it.

My friend describes me as having a really great tool (a meticulous, ambitious mind) that works against itself. I have a perfectionist quality with a fixed mindset. And I learned this after watching a video with Carol Dweck On Being Perfect. What I learned was that there are two types of perfectionists depending on your mindset: fixed or growth. Fixed mindsets focus on outcome and what is seen, which makes them hyper-conscious of their interactions with other people (but not really there with people). Growth mindsets focus on the process and what is learned, which makes them present with themselves and others (and truly indifferent to the perceptions others may confine them to).

I think the pretentious state stems from our desire to be perfect... and belittle anything that is not (to reaffirm our own "perfection"). The pretentious state thrives within the fixed mindset. It attempts to fool itself into thinking that it is beyond "perfection" and everyone else's ideals. Its fail-safe from the ridicule or judgement of others is to pretend to disregard them altogether. "They aren't anything." Unfortunately, those in a pretentious state can never quite rid themselves from the concerns of others because they secretly care to impress. So everyday is a battle to prove one's self-importance to others, but most importantly, to oneself, without being aware that they're doing it. The pretentious state has a pretty lousy emotional fail-safe.

There is a great misunderstanding between perfection and truth. The truth isn't perfect. There are a billion apples. Some are green, some are red, some are moldy, some are fresh... but they are all perfectly apples. The idea of perfect is dependent on the person. I think the perfect apple is short and stump, speckled near the stem, and has an ombre effect fading from a golden honey into soft red. My mom thinks the perfect apple looks deep red and wax-shined. Perfection has an imperfect description because it varies person to person. Perfection doesn't really exist in our world, merely described with inadequate resources. (I think this Quora is a great space to discuss it).

Whenever I met a pretentious person, I saw them as ridiculously confident and mixed it up with arrogance, "the quality of having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one's own importance or abilities" (Oxford Dictionary). Arrogance does not require an act or a state of pretending. Someone who is arrogant truly believes that they are as great as they say. Even though it may seem pompous and exaggerated to us, to them, none of it is aggrandized nor over-stated. They believe they are perfectly how they present themselves to others. Many are annoyed by them, but they are the most confident people on the planet. We sometimes confuse the ideas of arrogance with pretentious-ness. But someone who is arrogant is confident in their abilities and doesn't feel the need to impress. And someone who is pretentious feels the need to prove themselves and purposefully exaggerates their abilities. The pretentious state is a state of insecurity.

I had a friend who "loved" to act pretentious. He even told me so. When I met him, he was this awesome, daring, weird kid. I brought out of him his dorky side (the side he didn't want anyone else to know about). I knew him as a talented individual going through a lot of personal struggle and identity crisis. Most of which he hardly ever wanted to talk to me about or somehow convinced himself that I wasn't worth telling. (But then again, I was never one to ask or pry). I did notice things: He seemed to want to look a certain way. I suppose that is expected given his passion in the art of fashion. He acted "greater" than everyone even though he, himself didn't quite believe it. And individualism was redefined as the notion of being a better human being than another. By the end of college, he grew angry. He liked looking like he had insomnia because "dark bags are sexy". He wanted to look distraught because somehow this developed "truer" artistry. Pretending to be distraught made him very distraught. To him, the pain felt like a necessary step towards gaining a strange set of artistic privileges. Everyday felt like he was convincing himself that this pretending was the most romantic thing he could do with his life. He loved the tragedy, so dramatic and thrilling. And I was a bad friend because I never said anything... but how could I say anything, when I, myself was in the pretentious state along with him. (If you recall from earlier, I had an all-in-black stage. This was it.) By the end of it all, we weren't being real friends to each other, we couldn't share our feelings or admire each other. We were too focused on what we wanted others to believe, instead of what we believed for ourselves.

The pretentious state is a great confusing circle that perpetuates it's own cycle to no where. There is a great deal of personalized, psychological torture (practiced torment) that goes into indulging the pretentious state. Here's a few things that it does:

1. It develops insecurity about the quality of one's being.

2. It creates security in belittling others and insecurity in the successes of others.

3. It enforces the notion that friendships are weakness because it succumbs to the idea that one may admire another, and admiration is a "sign" of having "lesser quality" than the person they admire.

4. It teaches the art of lying to others and one's self.

5. It enforces it's own structure by not quite letting you believe you're great. So you surrender to the opposite. Not great, less than great, terrible, a fake. All lies.

The greatest lie being: you are lesser than you.

Now, I'd like to touch back on my earlier comment: Why do I think it is such a terrible tragedy that the pretentious state begins with pretending to be greater than oneself? Because it indulges the idea that one is "actually" lesser than oneself. And this is a fallacy because it is impossible to be a lesser you. In fact, you are the greatest you that you are at every moment and on and on into the future.

The pretentious state may whirl you into believing that you are not important, and instead convince you to believe you are truly incapable, and must pretend to be important. And that's the biggest lie. You are not important to begin with... let me rephrase that... you are not the importance that you think you are. For important suggests a tangible, fixed idea of you. And you are consistently growing on every level. You are forever in-progress, and every moment the realist you. (You can't be a fake because then you are just real-ly struggling to be someone you're not. But you're totally real.) That doesn't mean you can't change either. You can go from being a terrible bully one day. And the next day, you start befriending those you've harmed. Both are you, and they were the real you both times.

Be aware of you, not beware of you. Listen to yourself and your state. Don't judge it by binaries, especially by obnoxious or negative words like: greatest, worst, most, best, least, horrible, amazing, terrible, failure etc. These are all fixed words with end results that don't foster growth. Imagine me saying, "You're the greatest." It may make you feel great for a second, but you don't really know why, only that you want get that result again, and it really doesn't matter how you get it (which can create bad habits). So instead add words like: aware, daring, progressive, eccentric, thinker, skills, capable, appreciate, love, respect, understand etc. These words are all praising the process at which you do something. Imagine me saying, "I love the way you think about... because..." Fill it in. It makes you feel good. It praises how or why you do, not the things you do.

Learn to love doing things, not love the things you did.

The moment you appreciate you, the pretentious state deems unnecessary. And your appreciation of you allows you to see and appreciate everything and everyone (in all their numerous states). You are never who you think you are because you are always growing. So there is no need to define your state and confine it or compare it to some intangible, ethereal "perfection".

Does perfection exist? Yes and no. The state of perfection does not exist in our realm and never in the way we think for the moment we think it, it is touched by words that cannot possibly define it by the same perfection it requires. Perfection exists only in that everything represents exactly what they are at every moment. And it is not a subjective, ideal state, but forever perfectly what they are.

My new acting title: The Pretentious State, An Act of Insecurity or The State of Becoming Perfectly Who You Are... so it's a working title that doesn't need to be judged or defined, just like you and me.