Seeking Social Acceptance, I Guess?

Currently, I am thinking about the concept of hiding yourself from the world through the fabrication of an identity and personality.

Hiding in plain sight, so to speak. 

Or searching for acceptance and inclusion through the fabrication of an identity and personality.

I think that is the experience of so many people. 

I know that that was my experience. 

And so when that is the experience of others, I empathize. And I wonder what I could do to help them not feel that that was necessary. 

Because that experience is exhausting. You’re basically an actor. When you are around other people, you are an actor. You make up a character, you go into character like Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow, and you interact with the world. And you only get to drop the character and relax once you’re alone. So, you start to really look forward to being alone. Because interacting with the world is absolutely exhausting when you have to play a character the whole time.

Do you ever wonder how many other people are also playing a character? Certainly not everyone is. I would imagine a lot of people are being themselves genuinely. But there are other people like me, and I was playing a character. And so I wonder who around me might be playing a character now?

And not in a scared, paranoid way. But more in a curious way, a curious way that elicits a melancholy in me. Who around me right now feels like the only way that people will accept them is by playing a character? Who around me right now feels like the only way that I will accept them is by playing a character? 

No one should have to feel that way. We’re all just people, man. 

And no one should have those feelings manipulated into hate and anger.

Be yourself. The people around you may fall away. That’s okay. Those who truly care about you will still be there and new people will take the place of those who never did. Why would you want them around anyway?

And be nice to people, man. I don’t get why some of y’all are so mean, for no reason other than because you want an enemy. 

Anyway, I think about this a lot, actually.

Leave a comment. Let’s have a conversation. Tell me who you are.