Living in today’s world of madness, where nuance and subtlety and shading are lost in favor of strictly-tribalized labels and designations, one might be tempted to decry my seemingly-sudden turn into a wannabe-cowboy, but that’s missing the point of this journey, this fall, this project, and pretty much this entire website and blog. We are never just one thing: we change, we evolve, we shift, we bend, we grow – and to simply put on a pair of boots and a hat and proclaim oneself a cowboy is tragically foolhardy. Most of the people in my life get that, but sometimes even I lose myself in the guise of the moment, and maybe that’s been a bit more intentional at this juncture of season.
Inhabiting a new style and persona from time to time is vital to figuring out who you are inside – at least, it’s been helpful for me. Getting too inside my head, overthinking and overanalyzing and overdoing the quest for absolute perfection (even if I’d long ago given up that particular quest) were the pratfalls of the first few decades of my life – it’s been a bit of a corrective journey these last few years, and this cowboy guise is enough of a remove, while also staying true to the essential essence of my character.
Telling word, that.
Character.
What exactly does it mean here? Is it just another term for a specific persona – a device of dramatic machination as in a play or movie? Or is it the deeper meaning of the idea of one’s ‘character’ as the essential make-up of who they are internally as a person? That’s a delicious question, one I’d rather leave dangling in the air for a while – for my own rumination and contemplation rather than any performatively-mysterious cowboy stance.
A true cowboy never reveals their hand; the heart they wear on their sleeve may be just another affect.
I carry great affection for all such affectations.
