Smoke & Mirrors
Over the last few months, I have gained a sharper focus on the realisation that life is all a bit ‘smoke and mirrors’.
It has always been true to say that only we know the totality of ourselves and even those we are the closest to, we can only know as closely as they will let us see them. In fact even knowing our own selves is a problem. We all live with some degree of denial, and some level of skewed self perception.
Accepting our own true warts and all selves in all of its authenticity, with all the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ is a hard and long journey. most of us hide some of ourselves… usually also from ourselves.
So expecting to fully know anyone else is a challenge. We should consider ourselves very lucky and honoured to have people share as much as they can of their truth and vulnerability with us. And if, in that mutual exchange we can and genuinely do love each other despite our failings a and foibles, then that is a truly powerful and priceless connection.
I try incredibly hard to see my whole self, to be true to that and so cherish those who love/like/ want my company all the more for knowing they like the real me.
I love the self doubt in people, it demonstrates a self awareness and a willingness to be open and vulnerable. It shows that they trust me enough to see them even in those parts of themself they don’t necessarily celebrate.
Friendships, partnerships and relationships are so much more valuable when they are based on truth, openness and acceptance.
It’s All In The Cut
The last couple of years have brought into sharper focus, just how much of what we see, and hear, and are presented with is only, at best, half a truth. Often there’s very little reality in it at all. Take TV, social media, and the news. Its all in the cut.
What is left out. What is cut together. What is photoshopped, edited or spun. There is very little ‘reality’ in reality TV. There is very little that is not biased that is fed to us as fact. Or silenced so as not to serve us the whole story.
Sometimes lies are created simply by the absence of coverage. Take Ukraine for example, or the Gaza/Israel conflict, neither is any less horrific, destructive or active than it was, yet, how little the news talks of either these days.
But I didn’t come here today to get political. I came here to apply the same to what we see about celebrity, what is shared on social media and in society magazines like Hello and Country living, what is posted by any of us. At best it is half truth.
Oil & Water
A friend today gave me the perfect analogy and I’m going to steal it (Thankyou T, I’ll leave you anonymous). Some people are oil and others are water. Politicians, millionaires seem to me like oil. They are very superficial. They sit on the top yet have no depth. Everything is for show, much of it is a lie. Was that party ‘epic’, were those photos edited highlights or just scraping around for the odd good bit in an otherwise disappointing reality? Are those people really friends or are they all their simply to status signal.
I like to think the people in my tribe are like water. They have depth and some of the best bits are deep down and I’m welcome to dive those colourful magical parts of them.
Those iridescent technicolour’s in the thin layer of oil may look beautiful in the light but it has no depth and it pollutes the water. We can all do better without it.
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