A lot of new-age, feel-good gurus are telling us these days that if we want to feel good (or feel anything at all) all we have to do is to “act as if.” In other words, if, for example, we’ve just heard that a gargantuan many tentacled parasite hairball gacked up by a passing canine has somehow invaded our intestines, and within six months our entire insides will be eaten out rendering us wholly hollow, no problem! All we have to do, folks, is to act as if everything’s cool, and guess what? It will be! With the right outlook, it all just becomes Parasite Be-Gone.
I wonder. I do. Now take Edgar Allen Poe. What was the deal with that guy, anyway? Did his mother wrap him in black swaddling clothes or something? Here was a guy who had a real thing for big black birds, bricking up walls, (preferably when someone who’d ticked him off was behind them,) and peering into caskets he had absolutely no business peering into. An incredibly gifted writer, the poor guy also had a tiny difficulty with recreational swallowables, and very, very young lady friends.
Too bad Edgar couldn’t have learned this new trick of this century — to “act as if.” Perhaps if he’d stayed away from bad wine and brick and mortar, if he’d merely acted as if life was a sunny day at the beach, he wouldn’t have had such a bad attitude and that nasty black cloud hovering over his head might very well have turned into a flock of happily chirping bluebirds in the sunshine. Not.
But you know? Maybe the prophesiers of this “act as if” business have a point. I mean it’s been proven over and over that a good attitude turneth away rats. Maybe we should try it. And it’s not difficult, you know. We’ve been acting as if ever since we were born.
For example, when you got caught as a kid with your hand in the cookie jar or your father’s wallet, or your teacher saw your eyeballs straying to your classmate’s final test paper, or Mom and Dad discovered some unthinkable stuff stashed beneath your mattress — what was the first thing you did? You acted as if you were innocent, right? Oh come on now. You know you did. So did I.
When your latest boy/girl friend had it on very good authority that you were seen fooling around under the bleachers with someone else in a decidedly unplatonic fashion, you acted as if you were completely shocked and totally without guilt, right? Oh yes you did! And you were good at it, too. Very convincing.
What do vile (suspected) criminals do when confronted by officers of the law? They act as if they’ve been dreadfully wronged, right? Those guys put on Oscar winning performances of utter outrage that they’ve been so dreadfully maligned and accused of such shocking goings-on. Do the officers buy into it? Do you recall ever reading about cops saying “Oh jeez, sorry fella. If we’d known you were gonna react this way, we’d never’ve broke down your door like that to arrest ya. Obviously we’ve made a big mistake. Sorry, Pal.” I’ve never heard of that happening.
But hey, it could work. Think about it. For example, if certain politicos had…never mind.
Perhaps if President Nixon had acted as if he was not guilty — well, come to think of it, he did, and look where it got him.
So perhaps acting as if doesn’t always work and can give one agita because it’s sometimes stressful to act as if when it really isn’t. But sometimes when things get crazy and we don’t like what’s happening, we should sing a peppy song like “Keep Your Sunnyside Up” and act as if everything is just great even, and especially when it’s not. Here are the lyrics from that tune of 1929:
Keep your sunny side up,up! / Hide the side that gets blue. / If you have nine sons in a row. / Baseball teams make money, You know! / Keep your funny side up,up !/ Let your laughter come through, do!/ Stand up on your legs; / be like two fried eggs; / Keep your sunny side up.
Yeah, OK, I know it’s to gag, but hey, give it a shot when things get blue — there’s a chance it actually could work. You won’t know until you try!
LC Van Savage is a Brunswick writer
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