youthful vanity in bloom
I read yesterday that Orlando Bloom has gotten married. And I’m waaay too old for this, but it made me sort of sad. I liked indulging this feeling though, even though I should really know better, because it took me back to 16, when we really felt these things, and it was ok to go with them. To be upset, dreams dashed, as if we had a chance in the first place.
How is it we seemed to believe that? Some sort of youthful vanity: the belief that, if they just met us, we could be everything to them that these film idols were to us — the most beautiful, funny, charming, interesting. Now, the concept seems ridiculous, laughable, because well it is. So we steel ourselves and usually wouldn’t mention such a thought out loud (or on a blog).
But I suppose I worry that this is one part realism, and one part self-defeat. Maybe we have that naive optimism when we’re young for a reason. Then we get ourselves into relationships where we just feel we do everything wrong, or let someone else make us feel like we’re not “good enough.” We get rejected in love, work, socially. Some of us have pets that don’t even seem to like us. Some of us could use a bit more of that vanity we used to have than is culturally acceptable these days.
People tell us to “just be yourself,” to “know yourself,” “to thine own self be true.” And I think that in order to truly do these things, we have to look inside with a sort of vanity, a belief that everything we find in there, in its pure form, is good, and “good enough.” A lot of people would say that blogging is an exercise in vanity. And maybe that’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Maybe to even begin to better ourselves, we can’t start from a place of inherent self-doubt.
“I have come to have the firm conviction that vanity is the basis of everything, and finally that what one calls conscience is only inner vanity.”
Gustave Flaubert
It is funny that reading a piece of celebrity gossip is what got me started thinking about all this, but in a way it’s perfectly fitting as well. It reminded me of a clip I saw a few weeks ago, of Orlando’s appearance on the British TV show Extras (the basic idea is that celebrities play themselves, in ridiculous caricature, on film sets). I think it’s one of the funniest things I’ve seen all year. A combination of celebrity vanity and thinly veiled insecurity to the extreme. Well, just watch it.
And yes, it’s funny because he’s absurd and obnoxious, but isn’t there also something … likable about it? Is it just me? There’s something I find almost enviable about that kind of ridiculous belief in yourself, reality and propriety be damned. Maybe sometimes we don’t want to be humble, modest, to listen first and speak second.
“No, objectively I am really good looking.”
So, congratulations Orlando, let me know if it doesn’t work out.
