When you’re a kid, it’s almost expected that you will imitate, emulate, and basically ape your way through most complex interactions. I suppose that’s fine, except for the fact that at some point it ceases to serve your true, actual needs as a person. Which is really annoying. How are you supposed to be able to suddenly tap your real self?

So then what happens is we all start to harden into our various facades, hoping we will grow comfortable with them enough to deem them the real us. Of course that just puts more barriers between us and Us. Don’t you hate when you think you’ve uncovered something totally genuine, only to find you were duped by your own good intentions?

originally published on 11/14/09