on realness

So our culture definitely has an obsession with realness. This generation, at least. Thus, perhaps, our fascination with randomnity and self-expression both positive and negative.

Tonight I was getting rather frustrated because it feels like so much of our time is spent on facades. I mean, you could make your life one big facade to cover up the truth. At one point in the conversation I felt that half the people in the world are faking and the other half are casting their pearls before swine. Now I know that is hyperbole and the truth is that all of us do it some of the time and some of us do it all of the time.

But sometimes it is frustrating when there is fakeness and you know it. Especially when it's two way. It is probably a mark of insanity to never notice when people are fake, but also a mark of insanity to always think people are being fake. I guess the danger of talking about fakeness and realness is that then people might start to wonder whether you're being real...

Well, today my mom told me some really significant thoughts. They are significant to me because a) I have never ever heard or even thought about it before, and b) because this may be the first really profound thing I've heard about realness.

Firstly, she said, we are sinners and so we do have to fake, to a certain measure, not to follow our sinful nature at times. We can't do everything our sinful natures would have us do.

Secondly, a lot of us do spend our time hiding and nourishing our facades, because we are ashamed of who we really are. But the truth is that we should be ashamed of ourselves, because we're sinners.

Thirdly - we have to keep fighting that temptation to hide; we have to be honest about our faults, because in all reality bringing our sins out into the light is the way to heal ourselves.

I feel better now. But just in case you ever wondered, I am not Pollyanna.