My classmates and I were assigned by our professor to write an essay about a certain topic entitled “Life is full of Fake People, and everyone is not being real. ” A lot of ideas were playing inside my head but I don’t know how to commence.
I remember instantly my experience about fake friends; I can pretty much say that I grew up with a bunch of fake people. I have so many in my community and it isn’t even funny. Not to mention the friends that I’ve had growing up over the years. I want to tell a tale of a so called “best friend” I had growing up. At the end of fifth grade I had made a few friends, but this one guy that was with us kept staring at me.
He didn’t speak often, but I would catch a glimpse of him eying me a lot and it creep me out at first. This went on for about a week until I broke the ice. Pretty much afterwards we became fast friends and I found myself hanging out with him more than all the other people. We grew very close as the days and months went by, but it didn’t take very long for me to realize something about him. When other people were around us he would give me this look.
. . I don’t know how to explain it, but every time someone else we knew came around, he would distance himself from me. He would speak less and not stand close to me, it was odd but I let it slide.
As even more time went by we found ourselves in a what you would like to call “clique”. There were four of us then six, Our group was growing, but little did I know things were only about to get worse. Like any boy group things start to happen, if two of the boys were fighting then they group would separate and it becomes a he say she say. Well all the he say she say came all back on me. For some reason all the boys would be angry with me when I came around, would give me the cold shoulder or just laugh and snicker when I came around. I never knew why until I started to study my “friend” he would always have a look of guilt on his face and would never look me in the eye.
The more I studied him the worse it gotten until one day all the boys were at my door. I answered and the whole group told me to come outside. They all had this strange look on their face, so it made me question their motives, but what really got me was the look on his face once again, that’s what I knew what was going on. “Come outside we would like to have a word with you” One of the boys said.
That’s when they started glaring at me. I knew I was being set up and he was the cause of it. I didn’t go outside that day and I’m glad I didn’t, because they were going to lure me outside somewhere in the back of our house to gang me. I was told this by a boy who wasn’t my friend, but was there when the plan was made.
“John told everyone that you had been talking about them behind their backs and now everyone is trying to fight you. ” He said. John was my friends name if you’re wondering. I had also found out from the boy that my so called had been spreading rumors about me that my house smelled bad, he even said I had gotten beaten up on the bus, when I walked to school. It only had gotten worse, when he started to spread even more rumors. I would say that I and this guy almost got into about ten fights no joke.
He had started to tell everyone he was going to fight me and that he was going to beat me up. It was something every week. When I confronted him about all this he cried and asked me to forgive him. I decided to forgive him if he promised me he wouldn’t do it again. . .
. of course he did it again. He even stole a would be girlfriend of mine. I had told him one day that I had a huge crush on one our friend’s cousins and I wanted him to tell her I liked her, well he went over and told her something and next thing you know their dating. I wanted to punch the **** out of him for that, but I let it go.
According to my other friend he had went up to her and said he had liked her, and he decided to date her. What made me mad about it was she liked me and I knew it. He didn’t even feel any remorse about it. It was as if I was the one trying to steal his girl or whatever, he would always say.
“You’re my friend, so you better not try and steal my girl. ” WTF?I was so fed up with him, yet I couldn’t get rid of him. He would knock on my door every morning like nothing happened. He would follow me or try to catch me going somewhere to follow me, plus we rode the same bus when school came back in since we moved schools. I couldn’t get away from him.
I felt trapped, because If I didn’t keep an eye on him, guys would be at my door ready to beat my *** everyday. No joke I would say that he had a team of six guys including himself at my door ready to fight me about five times in all. He admitted to starting the rumors every time. When I asked him why she would say ” ooh it’s the past let it go. I also remembered that If a guy did him wrong or got mad at him he would get mad at me calling me a stupid ***** and that he wanted to beat my ***. It was as everything that made him angry was pointed at me and it was.
Some guys who clearly didn’t like me would get him mad, just for it to fall back on me. This boy even had his brothers believing I was the fake and crazy one. He told them I treated him wrong and used him. His brothers would be mean to me and cuss me out and I didn’t even know why.
I cried a few times myself wondering why he was so evil. The last time I saw him was in the third year of high school and I promised myself I would never speak to him again once I moved and I never did. Somehow he had gotten my number and tried to call, but I never answered. I guess he got the picture, but I’m older now and I don’t have to deal with crap like that anymore. It was because of him that I don’t have so many friends right now. I just can’t trust them, I would love to have some friends now, but every time I try to befriend one I just think about how that psycho treated me.
Till this day I am anti nonsense and I don’t hang around many people anymore. This has taught me to always trust yourself before trusting others. Back then I was afraid and insecure about myself. I didn’t want to be alone, so I stayed friends with a toxic two faced maniac for a few years. Until now I still have to deal with fake, but not as much.
The key is to don’t deal with it, If you feel like someone is about to set you up for something that may start something in the future, run! Stay true to yourself and never let anyone tell you, what your good for. Because of that I realized that it’s shameful to most people nowadays who aren’t being true to themselves, they always seek for something else even it makes them look like trying hard by doing such things. But few people do those things basically to fit with the environment they are living and eventually achieve the sense of belongingness. Speaking of belongingness let me again share a story about this kid who felt like he never belonged. Since childhood he has always been told that he wasn’t good enough, didn’t belong.
You see his granny was very disappointed when his mother fell pregnant with him. His mother’s family did not like his father and there was a whole lot of anger and bitterness surrounding his entry into this world. You would think that this was a Romeo and Juliet kind of a story, if only his parents didn’t end up hating and despising each other all his life and even though he had another sister 2 years younger. His childhood seems to consist of constantly power struggles with his sister and he caught up in the middle. The saddest thing is that he never knew his mother; she married another guy and left them with their granny.
They dearly loved their grandmother and loved her and took her as their mommy. The only real love they ever found and felt was from their granny. What they didn’t know and only found out later was that aunts were not happy about their granny raising them as her own. The whispers, jokes, the snide remarks about their kinky hair, their father’s tainted blood, the cold sneering eyes behind his grandma’s back, the taunts that their mother did not want them or loved them, these all started to fall into place once they comprehended the real situation. Part of them didn’t want to believe that their animosity existed, maybe they made it up, and maybe they imagined these slights.
But when his grandma passed away, all bets were off; they saw the real true colors. No way were we going to remain a part of his family and no way should they think that they belonged. Their mother passed away before his granny did without telling them if she ever loved them. Their father still spends every money he’s ever earned on drugs trying to forget his first love never being able to take care and provide for his children. His sister has thrown her life to drugs and sometimes living on the streets, not knowing where she belongs. He keep trying to find someone to love, to feel safe with, only to find the wrong person, the wrong place, the wrong space and time never knowing where he belong.
It saddens me to think that this story is about my cousin who felt never belonged. As I attempt to start writing this essay, I tried browsing the internet, and asked Mr. Google for help, hoping to find more ideas on what I’m going to write. I read an article where I saw and remember a famous quotation from William Shakespeare; “God has given you one face, and you make yourself another. ” It catches my attention and I thought that it might be a good addition to this essay. Literally explained, God has given us our own face, but some are not contented with it, those people who are undergoing surgeries and enhancements are examples of whom who are not contented with what God has given us.
But if you are going to reflect and look at the deeper meaning of it, the quotation wants us to value the gift of God. He created us in His features, and with individual differences, differences that make us unique with each other. But what do those people do? They try to imitate someone, and be somebody who is not. This quote is by Shakespeare, from Hamlet. Hamlet is upset at Ophelia and in that particular scene, known as the Nunnery Scene, (immediately after “to be or not to be”). She asks him if Beauty has more power than Honesty, and Hamlet tells her that such is the case indeed, because beauty has a power that transforms honesty, to be somewhat demagogical, changing truth to appeal to beauty.
He tells her he loves her, she says he made her believe so, and he replies that she shouldn’t have, because he didn’t. Lie comes lie goes he tells her to become a nun, now it’s a bit of blablabla about something not so related, and then he goes:I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; Godhas given you one face, and you make yourselvesanother: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, andnick-name God’s creatures, and make your wantonnessyour ignorance. Go to, I’ll no more on’t; it hathmade me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages:those that are married already, all but one, shalllive; the rest shall keep as they are. To anunnery, go. When you take it out of context “you” seem to refer to anybody or everybody.
But it actually means “you women”. He is talking, I think, about women being hypocritical and fake, with changing faces (or faces altered by makeup, or “paintings”) and hidden intentions. Not that I agree, but I think that the quote, in context, means that. Out of context it could be pointing to people not being truthful and honest to them. A Goethe’s quote comes to mind: If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise. Just like what Judy Garland says; “Always be a first-rate version of you, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.
” This quotation inculcate the readers to stay what they are, be themselves, act naturally and never imitate other people just to impress them. We can be known to others and eventually impress them by being who we are, we don’t need to act differently, or dress eccentrically just to show off. As I have experienced, I had once a classmate who was a transferee and she always dresses to impress, she always do annoying things such as flirting and speaking so much English and making some stories about her family being abroad. But a schoolmate of ours who were a distant relative of her father told us that in reality they are not rich, in fact her mother is a just a plain house wife and his father was sent to jail because he was an alleged suspect in a hold up of his employer where he used to be their family driver. In short, my classmate is just acting that way basically to impress us.
In addition to that it means to be the best that you can be and not try to be like other people. Don’t try to copy someone else because they are they and you are you. Everyone is an individual. It means to be original.
People that look and sound like exact copies of Michael Jackson they will always be copies, or second-rate version of him. But if you are yourself and do your best to improve yourself, you won’t be wasting time to be a copy of someone else but you’ll be investing it on your own, original self. It means that you have to be original in your actions and way of life, not try to copy somebody else, cause not only are you always going to get it wrong, you’re not going to feel good about and you’ll look ridiculous. On the contrary, Francois Duc de La Rochefoucauld says, “We are accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to others. ” This saying means, we need to fit in the community we are living for us to relate to others, but as time goes by we didn’t realize how much influence it gives us. We became the others that we thought we could never be.
In reality it seems to have a positive implication, in developing one’s public relations, self confidence and idealism. And with this quote it made me ponder. Don’t we all disguise ourselves at one time or another? Donning a mask, we “mask” ourselves from others. Putting a face upon our face, we assume another identity, conceal our true emotions and overcome our insecurities. Sometimes the mask we put on contrasts with our inner state, our character, our true identity.
It does not fit and at the end of the day, we remove them and our true self emerges once again. At other times, the mask grows into us and we grow into our mask, becoming all but one entity. We struggle to peel off that mask but it has become a part of our identity. This time, are we still masking ourselves from others or have we truly masked ourselves from ourselves? The mask becomes us as we become our mask.
Disguising ourselves, we slowly become our own disguise. Stripped of all our masks, does one true mask remain? Or is the one true mask the multiplicity of masks that we put on? We wear layers of masks so often that if one is removed; the true self is not found directly beneath. It is just another mask. Yet it is necessary to wear masks and disguise ourselves every day.
On the other hand, does being different with different groups of people necessarily equate to putting on different masks just because I open up different aspects of my personality among different people? I could probably be masking certain characteristics to tune in to the situation accordingly. I find that I’ve been changing a lot, acting the charade and being the chameleon. Yet friends who haven’t seen me for a long time would always exclaim that I’m still the same old Welson. On the other side of the plane, friends who are always in contact with me could out of the blue tell me that I’ve changed whether for the better or the worse and that I don’t used to be like that. There are times when I don’t really know myself. As a true Libran, I encompass so many opposing traits.
The melancholic sanguine. The uninspired artist. The wordless writer. The reserved extrovert.
The smiley grouch. The plucky wimp. The frugal spendthrift. Two counters of contradictory extremes displayed on a single bar. The single bar representing myself.
I try to bring the two counters closer to each other, slide them towards the middle. However, there is no way of integrating this duality. I seek to search for my identity but I found myself lost in my SELF. Most people search to be found. I searched only to be lost. Is the confused self who I really am? I change and form myself around different groups of people.
I believe many of us do that too. People always tell me how genuine I am, how certain behaviors, acts and mannerism are just some but the truth is I’m never 100% myself. Nevertheless, I always keep a little of my base personality involved — the true face beneath the many masks. And then I read Carl E. Pickhardt which helped me shed some light.
“Whatever outward mask I choose to wear only affirms some inward part of me. ” I don’t have to bother about which part is masking which and which side I should trust. I don’t have to be bothered about being disguised to myself. Because a mask worn on the outside can actually encourage my inner self to come out. People change over time and who we are is not something that can be cast in stone. We are the sum of our experiences — the multiplicity of masks that we put on.
I’m pretty sure a lot will agree that we all have to wear mask just because the world has expectations, society has expectations and people have expectations of us. We can’t always be ourselves if we want to be kind to others or to please others or to live up to other’s expectations. I guess the key knows the limit and how to balance coz it gets tiring not to be ourselves always. As I end this essay, allow me to leave a quotation from David Carradine; “If you can’t be a poet, be the poem. ” It means if you can’t create beauty yourself, then try to be an inspiration to others.
Hope this essay will serve as an inspiration to all.
