Keeping up Pretences

We live in a world of pretences. We spend most part of our lives pretending to be someone we think we are or pretending to be someone the world expects us to be. We pretend to like, pretend to dislike out of the fear of being outcasted. Because if we say we don't like something which everybody likes, we are tagged as 'weird', 'strange', 'crazy'. We pretend to be happy when we are sad and pretend to cry for things we no longer feel sorry for. We pretend to be friends with someone even if we can't stand them, we pretend to hate that weird guy in class even if we secretly like him. We pretend that our lives are perfect when in reality we are broken inside. 

Pictures of newlyweds, of babies, of food, of holidays, of every single moment in everybody's life. Status updates, pictures floods my facebook timeline saying that everybody is so happy and content with their lives. 

In today's world if you tell a lie long enough, it begins to sound like the truth. We lie to our families, to our friends, to our colleagues, to everyone we know and we lie to ourselves. Sometimes I wonder if I should envy the people who can live on pretences but I don't think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Living a life of pretence doesn't simply alter who you are, but it obliterates your true nature, your true character, it effaces you into obliviousness. You live a lie, a lie which no one knows but you and its a lie you carry to your grave. Your whole life is a facade and you have lived so long in it that you no longer can distinguish between the facade of a life that is yours and the reality which could have been.