Day 180

A footnote to day 177's entry: I think I may have accidentally given the impression that the 'analytic' moral theories prescribe selfish acts to people, which most of the time they do not. In fact, it is widely accepted that, for example, Utilitarian and Kantian moral systems demand a tremendous amount more than you probably do in terms of helping others and generally being a charitable and altruistic person. They look down on ethical egoism with contempt.

The original criticism still applies, but that should be noted anyway.
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People have images that they carve out for the world to see. In some sense we're all show-offs, because whenever we're in public we make a deliberate series of choices about the visual, audio, and semantic content people receive from us. Of all the people who allegedly "don't care what other people think" (i.e. almost everyone) I'd guess maybe 1 or 2 percent of them are telling something remotely close to the truth. I catch myself telling that lie quite often, whether it be to myself or to others.

Take my grandfather, a person who could truthfully say such a thing, at least in reference to many public contexts. He cuts his own hair (seemingly without a mirror), wears generic clothes with no discernable trend in design or meaning other than basic functionality, and uses words that clearly have not gone through the brain-mouth social acceptability filter most of the rest of ours do.

But he doesn't ever say such a thing because, ironically, only people who do care what other people think would consider it worthwhile to deny out loud.

So I walk around town and I see people and their carefully chosen images. I see a young guy, wearing baggy jeans, a white shirt with a rapper's name on it, driving a 'pimped out' buick with music so loud that it is impossible to ignore. It's his thing; it is what he wants you and I to see when we look and listen.

Or a guy strutting around with no shirt on, clearly having spent years in the gym and clearly proud of it. His ability to strut around confidently with no shirt is his thing, it's what he wants you to see, be impressed by, to be attracted to him for.

Or the mid-40's tough guy with a semi-grey beard, a painfully loud Harly Davidson, skull cap helmet and tattered leather jacket thinly concealing a broad chest. It is all carefully crafted. He wants you to be intimidated by him, to be in a state of mild fear, and thus reverance.

Or the man in the needlessly huge truck, wearing a tank top and blasting rock music. He wants you to think he's a real man who eats meat, kicks ass, and fucks women.

Or the teenage girl wearing the shortest shorts and clevage-est shirt possible, tip-toeing around town in wide circles with a group of clones, frappucccino in one hand, cell phone in the other, and side-view-mirror-sized sunglasses over her eyes. She is discovering her sexuality and the power it will have over others; this power is being exercised over you.

Or the old man, always particularly well dressed and dignified looking, whether it be for a symphony performance or for a mere shopping trip to the local grocer. He is near death, and he wants you to know the value of age, tradition, and old-fashioned respect for one's fellow man. Strike up a conversation with him in line, I could only recommend a few things in life more highly.

What am I?