"To be nobody-but-yourself -- in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else -- means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting."
e e cummings
Perhaps it is being yourself which is the hardest thing to do. It is difficult to know exactly how to define what ‘being yourself’ is exactly. People say “You don’t seem yourself” but I could be that you are the only person who will ever really know what it means to be yourself.
To a certain extent it is arguable that all of our interactions are an act. Every time I am observed I am acting. I act being myself. I act work, I act play. I act love. And you act love as well. So when we say “I love you” we are just reading the most cliched of scripts.
How much courage does it take to strip that down to the bone and to never lie or to hide anything. Sometimes a lie is the best thing. A white lie; a lie that protects. What about helping someone else to lie? Covering up. What about the lies we tell every time we smile at someone we don’t like? Is this being yourself? Our lives dictate that we must learn to adapt our behaviour and yet we hold integrity and honesty of character in such high esteem. How can we achieve both?
I am growing back into my own skin again. Like a stranger in my body; a tourist in my life. I don’t have to think twice about every decision but I do notice that as I let go I am starting to do annoying things like be forgetful. I cherish my own company less because I am not running away from anyone just for the silence. And I am happy. Strange and clumsy word on my tongue – unfamiliar shadow. An entirely new light falls on everything – even the things that make me sad.
