It’s not always that we write for others. Sometimes the words that color the page are simply for ourselves. The thoughts we write help us understand who we are. Josh and I drove from Joplin to Kansas City last night, we talked about a lot, sometimes we actually spoke. But, interaction always takes place even when we are silent. We talked about how interesting humans can be… how strange we are. We are always so fascinated when we learn something new about ourselves. When we recognize a pattern or behavior that leads us to understand our own selves. It can take years, ironically, for us to understand even the simplest of things about us. I suppose that this is the broken relationship between man and himself. We go through these sort of self-destructive stages that eventually lead us into adulthood.
As children, we have no understanding that we should want to be any different than we are. And so we just say whatever we think, speak our minds, even with jibberish. We love who we love and we behave instinctively.
We get a little older, and the cruel reality sets in that we will not be allowed to continue in our courageous naivety. And a lack of sureness about who we are develops. We act out, misbehave, and cry for no reason. Is it possible that even as children we feel the weight of a broken world?
By our adolescence we believe we are not who we should be. So, we pretend to be someone else we think we should be, denying the entire time our own beliefs, our own affections, our own thoughts. We adopt the popular culture as our personality. Those who don’t are marginalized…
High school comes around and we have all become professionals at pretending we aren’t who we are. Some of us have even forgotten who we really are and our personalities become so fluid we could be anyone… and no one. Something itches to escape though, something that says we’d really rather be experiencing the things we deeply enjoy. Instead of listening to the music that puts us in a box of accepted society, or using the colloquialisms that fit us into our generation, something in us asks if maybe, possibly, we could just do the things that actually make us happy? I didn’t realize in highschool I was even doing this. I was always different, I never wanted to be who others told me. But I still acquiesced to this idea that I needed to suppress the wild child in me that could only produce irresponsibility and regret. How wrong they were. Due to the hot pursuit of a crazy God I finally realized…
Then college. Most of us finally come to that place where we throw out all of the facades that have been our crutch for so many years. Excitement at the prospect of just saying “f--- it” and being who we are. Going where we want, developing not into the model citizens our social constructs sent us the blueprints for, but instead into people with passions, opinions, goals, and individuality, who are part of a bigger community, maybe even a meta-narrative… we have a better way of being: raw. Josh made the observation: this is adulthood. This moment when we still have questions, but we have laid to rest our games of pretend, and taken hold of our own imagination and creativity, to love and be who we are.
But some never do. And the weight of an image that doesn’t fit their spirit remains the back stabbing friend of those who have lost their courage and the sight to grow out of the oppression of a culture that demands a globalized personality to its citizens.
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