Authenticity. Even the true self.
Who is himself? Do you know someone who you can confidently say is truly themselves in all situations? Do you feel that you yourself are like that or do you sit and pretend to be someone you are not? That you pretend to feel something you don't. That you pretend to like something you don't. Be honest now. Indeed, many cannot even be honest with themselves. But if you take a few seconds to think about it, isn't it strange, bordering on the absurd, that we as individuals need to pretend? It's like we live in a make-believe world where no one dares to be themselves for fear of what others will think.
You must not see me like this!" a woman said one very early morning, quickly turning away while covering her face. She hadn't had time to put on her make-up. She hadn't had time to get ready for the one she chose to show me. The one she wanted me to fall in love with. Which was sad, because all I wanted was to see her. We can, of course, blame common norms, upbringing, patriarchy, stereotypes and whatever else we wish. In the end, it is still our responsibility to be as authentic as we can be. But who can? Who dares? So who is the other person we actually meet? Who is the one we are actually showing?
Play with the idea that there were angels and that one day you will be standing in front of you. It tells you: “If you can tell me the life you want, I will arrange it by snapping my fingers three times. You will not remember anything from this life within a thousandth of a second and you will not feel sadness, pain or loss. You will have all the assets you want, hang out with who you want to hang out with, work where you want to work, live where you want to live, look the way you want to look and so on. Now tell me, how much of who you are today would you keep and how much would you like to get rid of or change? If you really knew you could change absolutely everything, even your upbringing, even your memories, how much would you change? A little, a lot, all or nothing?
For most of us, it is difficult to be ourselves. For most of us, it's hard to be honest. For many of us, it is difficult to show emotions. For many of us, it is difficult to dare to think. But why? Take only our closest relations. Shouldn't we be able to be one hundred percent honest with those we live with? The ones we claim to love. Shouldn't they be just as honest with us? Still can get it. There is something broken in us. Something we don't know how to cook.
Play further with this thought: What if the broken thing is our inability to hear our own voice and to live by it? Imagine if what prevents us from being honest, from being ourselves in all situations, is our inability to hear our own voice because we are constantly hearing everyone else's. By everyone else's I mean parents, colleagues, bosses, buddies, friends, relatives, leaders, celebrities, and so voices from bygone times that we inherited in our DNA.
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The above text is the narrator's voice in one of my novels. The narrator's voice is present in all of them, but above all in the second and third parts of my trilogy Den Enda and in my new novel Among sheep - a bankman's confessions. The trilogy you can t.v. buy for SEK 300! Postage is added, of course. But it is still almost half the price compared to what you have to pay at the dealers. Click here!
Photo: Elisa Enriquez