World of Shadows

It’s funny how this world works, turning even the most timid into actors. Truly, I am miserable, in a passionate hate affair with everything my life’s turned out to be. And for now, late at night alone in my room, with only a fly buzzing over my thoughts, I am free to be that misery, to taste that bitterness. Come tomorrow, though, I’ll dress myself in the same costume as I always wear for public appearances: bright eyes, a confident walk and a smile. I’ll put on kindness and comedy for matching accessories. I’ll shroud myself in superficial happiness – and it’s all anyone will ever see.

I am like everyone else in this regard. We are all actors, dressed up for the scene in our sparkling egos and shining compassion. And so I’ll play this game like everyone else, compete for the best mask. It’s a sad world we live in when we cage ourselves to our misery behind illusions of contentment. We deny the truth only to live a lie we hate. I may never see a single person wearing only themselves, but if I do, I would hope to be lucky enough to know them as well. But our world is so full of skins and screens to hide behind, that with every passing day reality slips further away. With every passing day, reality is shrinking into an ideal that everyone appreciates but doesn’t practice. If I were to tell you that if you haven’t met a genuine person by now, you never will, how would you respond? Would you even care, with all these hollow stereotyped dolls to choose from? I would like to hope that part of you would be distressed, that a piece of you would fully acknowledge the loss. But I’m too realistic to allow such a hope to fully form.

And it’s time for me to step down from this righteous high horse, and claim my own bit of the plastic world. After all, I too wear a mask, with no intention of removing it. If only superficiality wasn’t so easy, so convenient. But for my lazy teenage self, it’s the obvious choice, over that of being my miserable self and alone. My fear of rejection overshadows my need of honesty. So, I put on the happy face, wearing the smile ‘til it hurts. Spiritually, I gain nothing at all. But surface gains friends and acceptance, and the diet form of love.

All it takes is one strong wind, one strong personality, to blow these costumes away and reveal the shadows beneath. I got that wind once. And in my momentary freedom from this jail of lies, I was introduced to what I should expect from life. Now returned to my cell, all I see if the grey that makes up the coloured surface. All I see is the man behind the curtain, the computer behind the effect, the void behind everything I’ve been living. Where I once saw people, friends, acquaintances, I see only shadows.

It’s all plastic, it’s all fake, all fabricated, all lies. But convenience is a convincing lawyer, and the jury swayed in its favour easily. I’m no exception.