There's something to be said against being seen as a poseur -- a wannabe who goes completely overboard kitting out, a dilettante who poses as an expert, a newbie who buys every last doodad before even learning the activity he's trying out... If you've seen the golfing episode of The Honeymooners ("Helloooo, ball!") or Tintin's Inspectors Dupont and Dupond (in the ceremonial costumes of each country they travel to), you have some idea of what I'm talking about.
Now, I have been known to Take Myself Too Seriously. Preparing dinner can be an exercise in complex seasonings and more sinks-full of of dishes than Julia Child. Exercise involves a heart rate monitor and a Web-based log. Even the costumes I make for my teddy bears start with period undergarments. In short, I often do things to the hilt -- or at least, pretty close to it.
This is not to say that I don't draw the line somewhere. While Donvan B. Bear's Elizabethan doublets have teddy-bear-sized buttons, they actually close with hidden snaps or Velcro. My own garb is machine-sewn. I purchase ready-to-use concentrated bouillons for cooking, and I will use (sparingly!) pre-made Asian-style seasonings (those sauces have more sodium than Lot's Wife).
Occasionally, though, I'll deliberately overplay a role, poking fun at my serious side. But playing the poseur can backfire in unexpected ways. For example, the inexpensive toque ("chef's hat") I purchased in university turned out to be the most effective method I've known for keeping my hair out of the way for cooking, and so I started wearing it whenever I was in the kitchen.
The bottom line is that an activity's signature gadgets and garments evolved from the twin needs of performance and safety. While they are often more technical than the casual partiipant may need, adopting them can sometimes keep us safer, healthier, or more productive.
There's still a fuzzy line between productive and overkill, between safer and less safe, between physically healthier and psychologically unhealthy, that should inform each of us whether or not to take "activity tech" to the next level. That line lies somewhere along our levels of training, talent, skill, financial resources, and dedication to the task or craft.
In diabetes care, that line is often drawn along the number of times we test each day, whether or not we adjust our diet to our test numbers, and whether or not we upload our readings and check for trends. For the insulin-users among us, it may affect whether you use multiple daily injections or an insulin pump, how you tweak your insulin(s) for "difficult foods" like pizza, and if and how you use a CGM. But in diabetes self-care, there are no poseurs -- for each of us it is the life we must lead, as best as we can.
In sports, or in the kitchen, it is another matter. Higher-end technology, without the skill to handle it, can be dangerous -- picture the average three-year-old trying to handle a very sharp carving knife, or an untrained driver trying to control a Formula One race car.
The fulcrum on which my current quandry has been balancing is cycling cleats.
At the time I purchased my Lotus Excelle, cleats were used only by Very Serious Cyclists. The shoes were expensive, still required toe clips and straps, and it took a fair amount of skill to ride safely in them.
It has been argued that with today's "clipless cleats", it is safer to ride cleated than to ride with clips and straps. In moving from the Excelle to the Dolce, I ended up going from rigid metal clips to flexible rubbery ones. I have spent more time trying to get my unclipped-for-stops foot back into the inadvertently-squashed clip than I've spent riding properly clipped and strapped. Add to that some wet roads which caused my foot to keep slipping on -- and off -- the pedal, and it's a Dangerous Configuration.
No matter how "excessive" it may look to me, I'm going to have to upgrade.
