We lie.
Mostly, it’s what we don’t, won’t and virtually can’t reveal about ourselves.
We can’t let people see our cellulite. And they mustn’t get a clean, clear shot of our tummy fat. A surgery scar, covered; hearing aid, miniaturized; baldness, shaved into invisibility; bad skin, caked with cosmetic coverings.
We buy clothing to hide our small this, and we buy more to hide our big that. Body dysmorphic disorder — it’s bon vivant.
It’s the same inside. Greed — we have to keep it as hidden as our credit card debit; envy — deny it; petty critcalness — hide it under false compliments; massive egotism — blanket it in false humility and rush it out the back door before some shouts, “Fire!”
It’s too bad, really, the forbidden-hidden, the covered imperfections, the smothered realities, even the closeted sins and finely coiffed failings–these keeps us from each other.
Consider this; it is massively hard on a family when one person becomes a super star. When one shines, gets rich, famous, pampered, adored, most everyone else suffers, in the shadow, with their “less than her,” and their “not at great as him.” Why? Mostly, we anguish as a result of our own massive insecurity, and secondly, from the great ones hidden imperfections. Our falseness, their lie — we die
What is it that actually bonds us to each other? it is mostly our weaknesses. Strengths are off-putting; they separate us from the pack, they raise us above the herd. But our weaknesses, our frailties, our imperfections, now there is ground on which to slum together.
Last Sunday I went into a children’s class at the church and an older woman was holding a five-year old, both arms around her as they watched C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. The movie was a little scary for the little one, but held, she was fine, good, smiling, safe.
It is the same for us. If we will uncover, show a little skin, some poochy flesh, some pouty epidermis, some fear, some less-than-noble, some downright human nastiness, then we might just give someone else a chance to see nothing incredibly, fashionably, imperfectly less than the real us!
And furthermore, if we could be okay with being who we really are, then the rest of our beautiful, free, self-loving personality might just come out and get loved. It takes a lot of work to fake it, to cover up, to make up a persona and dress it nicely, and it makes us too uptight to be fun.
Falsity — it’s dull, humorless, anxious, self-conscious and boring.
If we would reveal what we are really feeling — afraid, anxious, jealous, crazy, happy, sad — we might just get hugged. Bald, someone might pat us on the head. Imperfect curves, we might just be able to laugh about it with someone who looks the same!
If we would lie less, perhaps we would live out the fun, crazy imperfect truth of ourselves more.
Randy Hasper
Thrive! 