The Great Pretender

Be authentic. Be real. Be yourself.

I contend that none of us really are. To some extent, we all pretend. Every last one of us. Guys pretend to get the girl they want. Girls pretend to get the guy they want. Employees pretend to impress bosses. Children pretend to get the approval of their parents, right from their take their first steps, till the time they watch their own children marry and have children. From the time we learn our timetables in school, till the time we retire from 40 years in the workforce, we are conditioned to pretend.

The very idea of masks is that there is something real beneath the mask. Here's the problem. What happens when you forget what lies beneath? What then? Do you, like Robbie Williams, reinvent yourself every 6 months, proclaiming each self as authentic? Does self-invention and then re-invention become the new authentic?

Identity isn't what it used to be. There was a time when identity was what your card said it was. There was a photo, with your name next to it that said who you are. A tag with your name on it pinned to your shirt.

Blogs. Live Journals. Xanga. MySpace. Ringtones. Each of them allowing you to construct an identity for yourself. An identity as fluid as the next mouse click, the next new song, the next new blog template, the next created avatar. I wonder if people really ever know who they really are. Or does everyone just go with the flow, reinventing themselves with the next technology?

I'd like to think there is a core that we hold on to. Something that keeps us, at the very heart of us, constant. Call it a set of beliefs. Call it a higher power. Call it religion. Call it honour. Call it God. Call it something... but find it, and you'll find something precious. Find it, and hold on to it, and hopefully, you'll find your way home.