Hats

Time for another one of my observations. This time one about hats.

See, I am rather a fan of hats, but I have in the past been rather hesitant to wear them. You see, there is a certain archetype that I come across every so often, namely the quiet guy in a hat.

Essentially this is the guy who is characterised by being the one who is there, but you rarely hear his voice or his opinion, he is but a spectator to events, in the background, essentially part of the scenery. In short not the sort of person to step up or speak up in order to command any presence, rather he just keeps out of things and lets things be.

So what does he do to express himself? He puts on a hat. Nobody else is wearing a hat, hats are old fashioned and unusual, so this is his way of declaring to the world that he is different, that he stands out. The thing is though, as I see it, nothing has changed; he still doesn't take action, he still doesn't speak out, he's still that quiet spectator, the only difference is that he's now the quiet spectator in a hat. The hat changes nothing, but advertises that the wearer hopes that it will.

This is why I have always been hesitant to wear a hat. I have, for a significant part of my life, been the quiet spectator. I have been wary of the hat because to me it has always been a statement of ineffectual rebellion.

In more recent times, as I have started to demand more of myself, as I have started to push myself to live outside of my comfort zone much more often and I have felt the changes to my character I have stuck to this belief. The hat, I believe, should never be the statement, rather it should only be a trivial symptom of it, an accessory. True change comes from within, not from headwear.

So when I do don my fedora and braces for a bit of blues dancing I only do so for my own enjoyment, and in the belief that now these articles exist in the shadow cast by my outward expression of my character.