Monday, January 13, 2025
Fake it until you make it. I began wondering about this oft-used advice. It’s hard to tell the difference between faking it and making it. At one level, everything seems like fakery.
When I was young, I conducted records on my record player, like I was Leonard Bernstein. I played piano concerts and took bows to imaginary audiences who thunderously applauded. I also taught music classes on my Fisher Price chalkboard. And 20 years after I began faking conducting, teaching, and playing concerts, my adult self started to make it. What was the difference? One was pretend and one was real? The joy was the same.
On inauguration day, the outgoing president is flown out aboard Marine One. When the incoming president is declared president on the steps of the capitol, in that same instance, the helicopter carrying the former president becomes Marine Two. So, the only thing that changes is a declaration, and everybody believes that the incoming president has magically changed from a pumpkin into a stagecoach. The same is true in the famous words “Habamus Papum” – or “We have a pope.” A declaration is all it takes and voila, someone is “making it.” Or is it? Well, I declare – aren’t these important people just pretending? Is the pope still the pope when he’s on the toilet? When he dies, where does his popeness go?
What’s in a title, but a fake projection “onto” another? That title and story can be what you want. You don’t fake it until you make it, I say you fake it and fuck it. I declare. What’s the difference between the outgoing president and the incoming one? A few words, a lot of collective fakery, and some imaginative fuckery. It’s all the same. “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo” – Marine One becomes Marine Two. Well, I declare!