Don't be fooled by me
coil
Amateur pirate. Professional monkey. All pance. Join Date: 2002-04-12 Member: 424Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
Amateur pirate. Professional monkey. All pance. Join Date: 2002-04-12 Member: 424Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
in Off-Topic
<div class="IPBDescription">The truth.</div>I was in a theater group in middle- and high school, and one day instead of our normal warmups, our director handed out copies of this essay to every cast member. We then read through it, switching every paragraph. I was feeling introspective, realizing how much I've grown since I first heard this. Even though that was 8 years ago, this essay definitely stirred something within me and helped me get to where I am now.
Author unknown.
___
<span style='font-size:10pt;line-height:100%'>Don't be fooled by me. Don't be fooled by the face I wear. For I wear a mask; I wear a thousand masks, masks that I am afraid to take off, and none of them are me. Pretending is an art that is second nature with me, but don't be fooled; for God's sake, don't be fooled.
I give you the impression that I am secure, that all is sunny and unruffled within me as well as without; that confidence is my name and coolness my game; that the water is calm and I am in command; that I need no one. But don't believe me, please...
My surface may seem smooth, but my surface is my mask, my ever-varying and ever-concealing mask. Beneath lies no smugness, no complacence. Beneath dwells the real me in confusion, in fear, in aloneness. But I hide this. I don't want anybody to know it. I panic at the thought of my weakness and fear of being exposed.
That's why I frantically create a mask to hide behind; a nonchalant, sophisticated facade, to help me pretend, to shield me from the glance that knows. But such glance is precisely my salvation. And I know it. That is, if it's followed by acceptance, if it's followed by love.
It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself; from my own self-built prison walls; from the barriers I so painstakingly construct. It's the only thing that will assure me of what I can't assure myself, that I am really something. But I don't tell you this; I don't dare. I'm afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance and love. I'm afraid you'll think less of me, that you'll laugh, and your laugh would kill me. I'm afraid that deep down I'm nothing, that I'm just no good and that you will see this and reject me.
So I play my game, my desperate, pretending game, with a facade of assurance without and a trembling child within. And so begins the parade of masks - the glittering but empty parade of masks. My life becomes a front. I idly chatter to you in suave tones of surface talk. I tell you everything that is nothing and nothing that is everything, of what's crying inside of me.
So when I'm going through my routine, do not be fooled by what I am saying. Please listen carefully and try to hear what I am not saying, what I would like to be able to say, what for survival I need to say, but what I can't say.
I dislike hiding, honestly. I dislike the superficial game I am playing, the superficial phony. I'd like to be genuine and spontaneous and me, but you've got to help me. You've got to hold out your hand even when that's the last thing I seem to want or need. Only you can wipe away from my eyes the blank stare of the breathing dead. Only you can call me into aliveness. Each time you're kind and gentle and encouraging, each time you try to understand because you really care, my heart begins to grow wings. Very small wings, very feeble wings, but wings. With your sensitivity and compassion and your power of understanding, you can breathe life into me.
I want you to know that, I want you to know how important you are to me. How you can be the creator of the person that is me if you choose to. Please choose.
You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble; you alone can remove the mask; you alone can release me from my lonely prison. Do not pass me by. Please do not pass me by.
It will not be easy for you. A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls. The nearer you approach me, the more blindly I might strike back. It's irrational, but despite what books say about a person, I am irrational. I fight against the very thing I cry out for.
But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls, and in this lies hope. My only hope.
Please try to beat down my wall with firm hands, but gentle hands - for a child is very sensitive. Who am I, you may wonder? I am someone you know very well. I am every man you meet. I am every woman you meet.</span>
Author unknown.
___
<span style='font-size:10pt;line-height:100%'>Don't be fooled by me. Don't be fooled by the face I wear. For I wear a mask; I wear a thousand masks, masks that I am afraid to take off, and none of them are me. Pretending is an art that is second nature with me, but don't be fooled; for God's sake, don't be fooled.
I give you the impression that I am secure, that all is sunny and unruffled within me as well as without; that confidence is my name and coolness my game; that the water is calm and I am in command; that I need no one. But don't believe me, please...
My surface may seem smooth, but my surface is my mask, my ever-varying and ever-concealing mask. Beneath lies no smugness, no complacence. Beneath dwells the real me in confusion, in fear, in aloneness. But I hide this. I don't want anybody to know it. I panic at the thought of my weakness and fear of being exposed.
That's why I frantically create a mask to hide behind; a nonchalant, sophisticated facade, to help me pretend, to shield me from the glance that knows. But such glance is precisely my salvation. And I know it. That is, if it's followed by acceptance, if it's followed by love.
It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself; from my own self-built prison walls; from the barriers I so painstakingly construct. It's the only thing that will assure me of what I can't assure myself, that I am really something. But I don't tell you this; I don't dare. I'm afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance and love. I'm afraid you'll think less of me, that you'll laugh, and your laugh would kill me. I'm afraid that deep down I'm nothing, that I'm just no good and that you will see this and reject me.
So I play my game, my desperate, pretending game, with a facade of assurance without and a trembling child within. And so begins the parade of masks - the glittering but empty parade of masks. My life becomes a front. I idly chatter to you in suave tones of surface talk. I tell you everything that is nothing and nothing that is everything, of what's crying inside of me.
So when I'm going through my routine, do not be fooled by what I am saying. Please listen carefully and try to hear what I am not saying, what I would like to be able to say, what for survival I need to say, but what I can't say.
I dislike hiding, honestly. I dislike the superficial game I am playing, the superficial phony. I'd like to be genuine and spontaneous and me, but you've got to help me. You've got to hold out your hand even when that's the last thing I seem to want or need. Only you can wipe away from my eyes the blank stare of the breathing dead. Only you can call me into aliveness. Each time you're kind and gentle and encouraging, each time you try to understand because you really care, my heart begins to grow wings. Very small wings, very feeble wings, but wings. With your sensitivity and compassion and your power of understanding, you can breathe life into me.
I want you to know that, I want you to know how important you are to me. How you can be the creator of the person that is me if you choose to. Please choose.
You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble; you alone can remove the mask; you alone can release me from my lonely prison. Do not pass me by. Please do not pass me by.
It will not be easy for you. A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls. The nearer you approach me, the more blindly I might strike back. It's irrational, but despite what books say about a person, I am irrational. I fight against the very thing I cry out for.
But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls, and in this lies hope. My only hope.
Please try to beat down my wall with firm hands, but gentle hands - for a child is very sensitive. Who am I, you may wonder? I am someone you know very well. I am every man you meet. I am every woman you meet.</span>
Comments
In RL I'm somewhat of a "Say what I mean and mean what I say" kind of person, I hate it when people weave complex social webs involving "He's "going out" with her" and so forth. Sometimes you can't say "Jee it's sunny today" without attracting criticism. I know I'm going to sound a bit like Oprah here but I think out lives would be immeasurably better if people dropped these childish masks and talk openly.
Well that's it for my rant. Feel free to flame me for/comment on my views.
--Scythe--
Good thoughts, but he is somewhat mislead, like the vast majority of people out there.