All The World Is A Stage

This is a difficult post to write, from a self-reflective perspective. Not that I dislike introspection, but anytime I have to be insensitive (least of all, to myself), I'd rather follow the old adage and say nothing at all ("if you can't say something nice..."). Then again, why restrict what I say? From whom am I trying to hide?

So, here it is. I am a hypocrite, more or less. More, because I am comfortable in this act of double living. Less, because I do seek to correct this small tragedy.

The word hypocrisy comes from the Greek word, hypokrisis, which is the act of playing a part on stage. Modern usage can be summed up this way: saying one thing while doing another thing entirely. In both respects, I pretty well cover the definition.

It is difficult to show the true me to people. I think in one respect, I've always felt myself to be unique or different from others. Not just as an individual (like everyone else), but more special or better than others. Not really better in the sense that I am a better person than others, but just apart from everyone else. I have always felt that I am not really like other people, in the way that I see other people being the same. I see others conforming (consciously or unconsciously) and being the same - same in the way they talk, the way they think, the way they dress and act.

Now, there are people who are truly different. They are simply unique individuals who excel in various ways. Some are polyglots who can converse freely in several languages, others who perceive and can utilize their bodies to create music in ways that most cannot. Still others have superior minds or will-power, or have integrity girded in steel. I am not really like those people. I don't have any truly special abilities, not really in the ways that others do. I just see things differently and feel differently about most things. I mean, I am pretty good at most things; I have a fairly high IQ, athletic and above-average at most skill sports and recreational activities, etc. But nothing that makes me different from an outsider's perspective. I am different only in an insider's perspective, my perspective. And this is where Hypocrisy Part 1 comes in.

As most others, I desire community and social structure. Commonality and shared experiences give assurance and satisfies a basic need. But since I feel different from most others, and I know of no others that I see as being the same as me, I have always lacked community. Now, I am not sure what I would do if I met a person who was the same as me (probably, I wouldn't like what I saw), but because of the way I feel, I've always felt alone.

To combat this feeling of alone-ness, I've tried to fit in by being like the others, dumbing myself down and doing what others do. Dumbing myself down often makes me the butt of jokes and ribbing by others, but what else can I do? Either I look like a fool (but a fool that people feel comfortable around) or I look like an arrogant and aloof guy who is bored by the banalities of the social interactions around me. Which is better? Thus Part 1 of my hypocrisy is established and continued at the risk of alienation.

"The Sun shone brightly on this fool
Taking the merry laughter in stride
Frozen in a smile behind clear eyes
No graven-stone was ever so empty."

Part 2 of my Hypocrisy is all internal. It is what I tell myself, and what I do. Physical - I tell myself to be healthier, to work out regularly and quit my bad habits, but my resolutions fall by the wayside as sloth takes hold. Spiritual - I pray to God that I become one worthier of my station and the blessings I have received, and each day my actions and thoughts fall again by the ditch as selfishness and ego destroy the best of intentions. The list can go on and on, and I have only my daily indictment to chastise me.

It is an old story, and probably not new. Where is that young soul that had a fresh slate and nothing but dreams and potential? Why now, in the midst of my burdened body not yet turned to grey and to dust, have I been given the opportunity to see my shortcomings but not given the willpower to truly change? Better than I've not been given the power of perception, and simply lived in ignorance, than to see Dorian's painting before the final brushstrokes are laid to canvas. I mean, the easy answer is simply to put mind over body, isn't it? Where is my mind now, when I am in most in need?

"A long sturdy fence circles the dry meadow,
Holding tight the sheep so clustered from harm
Yet their bleats betray the enclosure that keeps
Them from the nourishing grass on the other side."

The tragedy of this, really, is that none of this is new to me. I guess I just feel more comfortable this way than to change. There are other less likely possibilities, like, maybe I've just not found the right group of people to open up to yet. But as time passes, all I can do is watch the grass on the other side.

-David

(* both above poems are spur of the moment attempts at a more artistic expression, pushing beyond the talky-talky rhetoric and the expository composition)