Last updated on May 18th, 2021 at 02:21 pm
“Nice guy” is something I’ve been called. I’ve been called “funny”, too. Awesome, cool and caring—sure, if someone’s really trying to get my attention.
But “classy”?
Why I Don’t Think I’m Classy
Despite my tenure in private school, classy was never something I aspired to. So that we don’t get this twisted, let’s not confuse this with being classless—I just don’t generally do too many “cultural activities” that would categorize me as a “classy guy”.
No opera, no gala openings (unless I happen to get randomly invited by friends), no black-tie events—none of these are usually my style. I might dress up for work, and you’ll rarely see me at an event without my uniform of a dress shirt, jeans and dress shoes—but when it comes down to it, I’m more beer and burgers than wine and cheese.
Which is why I thought it would be an interesting change to my daily routine to go see Cirque du Soleil’s Amaluna.
[Disclaimer: I’m gladly accepting some Amaluna tickets for writing a post about my lack of classiness, so there you go.]
So How Do You Keep it Classy?
I’ve never hit a Cirque du Soleil event, so I have little to no idea of what to expect. But there’s a lesson in all of this. I see a lot of people relying on cultural events to enhance their lives…
“If I hit this TIFF party, my life will be that much cooler.”
“If I show up at this charity ball, my peers will respect me that much more!”
Listen. You’re doing it wrong. If these events reflect your ideals and add to your life, you’re in the right place to be. Otherwise, you’re not being classy—you’re just being a snob and using your influence, privilege and experiences to convince yourself that you’re better than everyone else.
And that, my friends, is only assy. You don’t make it all the way to classy that way.
So hold yourselves accountable. Be true to yourselves. Do what makes you tick. Being authentic these days is the only “class” you need to get ahead in this world—it’s where you can draw your sense of being from and what you can use to remind yourself that you’re doing just fine in the life you lead.
Because if not you, then who?
9 replies on “Stay Classy”
Cirque doesn’t allow outside photography. The flash could distract the performers during very dangerous routines and cause injury.
That makes total sense to me and I suspected as much. I guess the pics that I promised will involve some in the lobby and some of the look on my face after — all done with a camera phone. Ayup.
Wait: So then you ARE classy? Or are you actually attending Cirque du Soleil to be hip, making you unclassy? Is Cirque du Soleil hip? What kind of wine goes with Cirque du Soleil? Or is it more cheesy? I’m so confuzzled!
LOL. How to put this best… okay. In the sense of “classy” that I have in my head, classy I am NOT. However, if an opportunity arises to do something classy, I’m all for it — NOT because it’ll make me cooler or as a sign of status or whatever, but mostly because I like doing as many different things in life as I can to enjoy myself 🙂
So I was trying to allude to the second part of the article there with my NEW version of “classiness” by staying true to my principles and simply being who I am at all times.
Convoluted logic, but it was there.
I think the only beverage that goes with ANY sort of cheesy cheese is “whine”. [/rimshot]
Going to see Amaluna tomorrow night with the family. You can snap pics outside and such but inside it’s no flash stealth pics only. The ushers WILL call you out loudly and more often than not beeline right for you to do it to boot!
To be fair, the artists are contorting themselves into a human pretzel or balancing themselves 25 feet into the air on top of another man’s head (yes I’ve seen it done in a Cirque show before lol) and they messed up their act b/c of a flash, they would be pretty pissed let alone distracted.
Let me know what you think of it! This is supposed to be one of the first ones with an actual tangible and discernible story line. lol
Oh, I totally get it Adrienne — I’m not even annoyed about the camera situation; it’s very precarious business at hand 🙂 I’ll make sure to behave myself!
I’m going to try and include my thoughts in a later post — though these things come together as I gather my thoughts into things I can actually communicate, so who knows how that’ll go down 😛
I agree with the last bit. Drunk and stuff and like jelly and stuff!
Great post – late comment though.
Definitely agree that it’s important to do it for the right reasons and not do it just so you can later tweet that you attended some gala event.
However, as a caveat, I think it’s also important to go to events that don’t necessarily reflect your ideals, attitudes, or personality. It’s important to get out of the comfort zone. I do agree that we should forget the label of classy, but it’s a good growing experience to do new things with an open mind. I know you know that, but some people can take the advice to mean that they should only stick to what they know like.
Oh, for sure. The funny things is that performance art isn’t even “my thing”, so this was already quite the novel experience for me — and for the most part, I enjoyed it! The experience itself wasn’t utterly mind-blowing, but there were definitely parts of the show that completely stunned me insomuch as what the human body is capable of.
Life is the sum of our experiences. We just need to remember to have as many of them as possible 🙂