An Authentic Life

To live an authentic life, not a warmed-over reproduction of someone else's, aping the moves of the envied.

To write my own life's music - whether loud or quiet - rather than solely parroting the songs of others.

To dare reveal the genuine, uniquely expressed, as opposed to mere conformity meant to impress the shallow who judge the outward, seemingly oblivious to the deep, deep inward.

To climb the mountain of my potential for view and growth instead of for a photo-opportunity that begs attention.

While the posers of the world play King of the Hill, madly shoving and clawing toward dominance on a crumbling, teetering peak using faster, shinier, noisier machines, and gaudy possessions fresh from producers who use the duped to prosper themselves, while these same imitators desperately scratch words on technological walls and pages or on tiny screens clutched like life-support systems in ever-clenching fists, while everyday people swallow the swill of strangers to whom they look for guidance on youth and coolness factors, those few who dare think - think! - find themselves ever on the outskirts, away from the glare, heads shaking in astonishment that fellow human beings consistently turn their attention away from what is real to instead measure success by the amount of material possessions they hoard and how contemporary their toys may be, how splintered their attention can become due to constant fatuous interruptions, and how often their jarring voices can vomit incongruous words into spaces void of reason.

Like the last cup of bath water which quickly swirls down the drain, society's runaway oblivion seems unstoppable.

The pull of the crowd is fierce. It scares me. Because sometimes I am too weary to fight.

But I always return to my mind and my heart.

Today there is a force yanking at my emotions luring me to compete, to compromise.

But I resist. I cloister myself from seduction. Experience, belief, knowledge, understanding restore equilibrium. Posers. They are posers who polish a facade. This is not my aim in life. No.

I find resolution.