I hear that saying all the time "Fake it until you make it" and have on more than one occasion been instructed to just "act as if....." as if I belong, as if I know what I am doing, as if I am supposed to be where I am at the moment, as If I have things all under control. To project an air of strength, confidence, decisiveness, determination, intelligence, experience, and maintain this position of power and confidence at the expense of most everything else. For to project even the appearance of indecisiveness, insecurity, or anything that can be seen as weakness is not acceptable. This was a belief system I had internalized from a very young age, the youngest of 6 boys, needless to say things were competitive to say the least.
It wasn't any one specific rule, or belief per se, but all of them, the way information and data was gathered, reported by and interpreted by my brain in combination with the never ending emotions and feelings being experienced and unfortunately permanently attached to experiences (or so I once believed them to be forever linked) leaving me at the mercy of my memories, generally faulty memories at that.
It was during these most formative and influential time in my life the faulty wiring or foundation if you will was laid. The incessant need to have the right mask for the right situation for what age group (9 years separated the oldest and myself). Beauty and every single other "benchmark" or baseline of measurement has always been 4-15 years out. Everything from women to level of maturity needed to life's experiences. I was introduced to hardcore porn at 6-7, reading autobiographies of societies who's who at 7. Anything and everything you can expect 12 year old to go through, was old hat for me by 9. So I learned the same things kids learn, only I learned it 3-6 years early.
Spent more time wearing masks that not, so much so that they began to feel authentic and natural instead of the prop that they were intended to be. To the extent that not only didn't I feel comfortable in my own skin, but I didn't fit my own parameters for strength, beauty, most every aspect of sense of self, did I fall short of my internal mark. So now the loathing and active disdain for self was one more reason to not take of the masks. As I write this, I think about how if technology had provided me with a viable substitute reality like there is today what would have become of me? Would I be better off, would the world?
How about you, if given the chance to spend as much or as little free time in an "alternate reality" (be it virtual, digital, augmented, or anything in between) would you do it? And if it were possible to work, earn a living, eat, learn, sleep, experience all of life's goodies in this other world, never "needing" to come to the surface and unplug, would you or would you stay jacked in?
