"It seemed to me that Cambridge and, to some extent, the whole of England was pretending, with an elaborate and intent and conscious, and perhaps in some cases a courageous effort, to act as if it were alive."(140) Thomas Merton, a monk of the nineteen hundreds, said in his autobiography "The Seven Storey Mountain". It is the summary of what I will discuss in this short essay.
It only serves me to be honest, and in doing so, I may be revealing some things that I had previously left unsaid. But there comes a time when one reaches his/her limits and must act accordingly. As to the effect this paper will have, I expect very little, if any, impact. But I believe that it is worth the attempt.
For some time I have feared the mask of society. This has not always been a completely defined figure, but I had my mind set on being myself and being no one else. For so long I have feared becoming another mindless part of the machine, labouring only in order to survive and labour more. For myself, there is nothing worse than that sort of death. It enslaves you and allows you to suffer accordingly. In this manner, I have succeeded in holding true to my own being. However, the past few years have taught me much about the masks that people wear. Once, some time ago, a group of friends of mine and I heard these words "I see the man among you. Hidden behind a facade." The source does not matter, for when I heard those words, they spoke to me far too deeply to be ignored. They have been burned into my mind and they still catch fire at times. This was the moment that I realized that I was pretending. For all that I had tried, for all that I had feared, I was still pretending. There is a difference between selling one's self to society, and constructing a mask of likability to wear in social situations.
About two years have passed since, if not more, and I find myself in a similar position as Merton did himself in Cambridge. While my passions are not so recklessly chased, and I am a strong student in most regards, I too find myself face to face with a reflection I cannot possibly hope to recognize. It is hard to see myself in a man who engages in completely meaningless conversations and engagements on a daily basis, who can feel so passionately and yet seems tranquil in the most powerful of times. This is the mask. To who here have I confessed that writing is the future I plan for myself? The answer is few if any. It is confounding to think that such a crucial aspect of any person's life might be so easily brushed off as a hobby. As if to add to the terrible nature of this facade, even deeper emotions, how people truly feel, are often concealed. This, I find, is most evident in the way in which I hear people talk about each other, as opposed to the actions that they undertake around those people. It is obvious that no one wants to be the 'bad guy', so no one bothers telling each other what annoys them, or that they simply don't like them. Instead, they keep up the facade of friendship by smiling and laughing along when in person, and then turn around and whisper plans to others as if it was not obvious that someone was being left out. In some cases it seems acceptable, but that may just be an illusion. Sure person A might have a lot of friends besides this particular group, but does that pardon the deception at play? I hardly think so. Even worse is when person B does not seem to have very many other friends. Sometimes that group is all they have, as little as that may actually turn out to be, and in being excluded, they are left all alone with no one to turn to. And both person A and B know that they are being excluded, which results in frustration and sorrow. Perhaps you have not been either, but imagine now if you had five friends, all of which seemed to like you because they always seemed to laugh and smile with you, only to find that every night, when the contact was not necessary, you were completely alone. No one calls for you. No one checks up on you. No one asks you to come out with them. This all leads to the inevitable conclusion that no one cares about you. From there, it's not terribly hard to imagine it spiraling into some terrible place.
Imagine all that. Now imagine that you are the one causing it. Imagine that there's this one guy, or girl, who just rubs you the wrong way, so you don't want to hang out with them. That's understandable. In fact, I recommend avoiding people you simply don't get along with, unless it is absolutely necessary that you deal with them. However, when you put on the guise of friendship, talk behind their back, and then do everything you can to not deal with them otherwise, then you are the cause of the problem described above. I understand that you may not like the way they view the world, or the way in which they speak, but putting up a facade of friendliness is not going to fix the problem. In fact, it might just make it worse. It is better to know one is disliked than to have the haunting suspicion that everyone secretly hates him/her.
But enough about that. Here we are to talk about pretending like Merton described in his autobiography. In a way, we've already addressed, more specifically, what this means. First, it includes the pretending involved in simply doing as society says, which never perfectly corresponds with one's true nature. Second, it includes the pretending that people do on a social level about themselves. I would suppose that if you were to ask any of my friends here at Bishop's, they would not be able to name what scares me the most. Likewise, I could not do the same for them. We conceal ourselves. Third, it includes the pretending also taken at a social level, but more specifically, the pretending of friendship. While I would not claim that all of these are conscious and intended facades that have been put up, for these things can often be built into one's person before they are able to detect it, it is clear that the last one is very much conscious and intended. After all, they make the conscious decision to exclude certain other people, and include others. But as for the actual attempt to pretend as if this is all alive, this much remains unsaid.
These types of pretending attempt to create the illusion of life through their general affirmation that they are the reality. The people involved have this tendency to fall for the act, even though they themselves are the actors. One tends to claim that he/she knows his/her friends, but I have my doubts about that. That's not to say that there are not genuine friendships out there in every day life. They exist and are more or less abundant. But compared to the amount of fake friendships, they are scarce. For some people, they are essentially non-existent. Regardless, all of this pretending creates a meaning in the people's lives that only be traced back to meaningless. It is the mask of the dead, and when removed, there is nothing more obvious than the decay.
And now I will end this essay on pretending. There is much more that could be said, I am sure, so feel free to comment or contact me with questions or disagreements. And so, until next time,
-Zero
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