Who Are You?

I was scrolling down Facebook, and seeing all these quotes about life and love from people and started to post the ones that hit me within the first seconds of reading them and then I stopped.

And I looked. Truly looked. Looked at the words that penalized, or justified actions. That said yes, hurting someone is okay as long as it is because you are being your true self. Another one about how much it hurts to feel unwanted by those you want the most. A third about being tired of begging to loved. A dozen more or so about what “true friendship”, and another about how “intimacy between lovers isn’t about sex. It is about laying, laughing, and enjoying each other’s company.” Posts about how friendships come before lovers, and about how lovers come before friendships and even more about how romantic relationships are useless in today’s society. Everyone is proud to be single. Sex is just something that makes you feel good and nothing more.

I am looking at these words. Words chosen by people because they meant something to them in the instant that they read them. I read the contradictions, the bitterness, the embracement of individuality and the condemnation of everyone who doesn’t agree. I read hope, longing, and crying out for love, for more in this life.

I see a world battling itself. Battling for dominance. Battling for attention. For affection. I see jealousy willfully destroying all kinds of relationships, and fear destroying our own souls.

Life is hard my friends. You want so much, and think you have to live within lines, or have to destroy those lines, because they aren’t your lines and FUCK THEM ALL attitudes and I’m me and…..

I’m sad.

I’m sad because in our quests to know ourselves, to have an identity but break the ideology of identity and it’s constructs, we have somehow stopped being human. We define ourselves in other’s words because we have somehow lost our own. In this age where information is so readily available and a call, which grows louder each day, for re-connection to our neighbors, to our community…we stopped being human.

You aren’t a good person, an exceptional person, for telling the truth.
You aren’t an amazing soul, a hero, because you feed and fight for those in need.
You aren’t a better person for sacrificing yourself.
You aren’t a true soul, simply because you do the right thing when no one is looking.

You aren’t a bad person for turning away from a reaching hand.
You aren’t a horrible human being because you sought recognition for your work.

Someone asked me the other day, about who I was…and I used examples, and quotes, and pre-made labels…

But who am I?

I was told I was traditional…and it made me feel filthy. It made me feel like my point of view was obsolete, and humorous, because it doesn’t fit in with today’s ideologies. Ironic really, considering that being non-traditional is also a social construction. I now understand how religious people must feel in today’s world.

But I didn’t know what being that meant. I didn’t know what being me meant. I know me, right?

And it all changes…each day…so to keep up we use quotes, and fill the internet with sarcasm, anger, mistrust, and pleas for love. Pleas for a life that has meaning, for something to justify that meaning, and bitterness when answered in a way we don’t like.

But somehow I never imagined, that truly being human, was a fairy tale. A social media post by some unknown author. A long-winded blog post by someone who knows too much, and never enough.

“A real man would cut off any female that threatens his relationship. A boy makes excuses.”

“If someone really loves you, no matter how many people they meet, their feelings for you won’t change. A real lover can’t be stolen”

“Our friends have the greatest influence over our lives. They shape us, define us, and walk our paths hand in hand.”

“If your lover has a problem with your friends, that person is not worth loving”

“The person who loves you the most is the person who sees you beyond the good and the bad days. They see you outside of your circle of friends, outside of your family, outside of what the world deems you to be. The person who loves you the most, is the person that looks you in the eyes, holds out their hand, and promises to love you beyond comprehension.”

“Love has been ruined by love poems, movies and songs. It has become a fairy tale, something that is fully unattainable so we must settle into what we can accept as love. It’s sad really…”

“It doesn’t matter, really, in the end. Flights of fancy, instant satisfaction, the newest thing, the improvements…none of it matters. It is material. It is left, untouched, in the closet. It’s a memory that fades. It’s forgetting a name. The only thing that matters in this world is who you are, and the impact you leave on the world around you.”

“True friends will always been there for you, and accept you for who you are.”

“You can’t change people.”

“People are selfish.”

“We’ve moved away from being a culture of people who think about movies to one made up of people who believe that spouting a list of preferences is the same as registering an opinion”

Where did we go? Where did love, trust, respect, and honor go? When did it become okay to something, even if it bothers someone else, because it doesn’t bother our own selves? When did compromise, learning, and growing become trivial?

I don’t think I’ll be reposting any more quotes. Somewhere along the way I lost a voice that once was strong enough to stand out on its own.

But you can never go back, just forward…and while I may not fully understand myself now, I know who I want to be. I want to be human. I want to be something more than what I have become.

But I have one last question for you…

Who are you?

Faith Taryn Davies

A Writer Exists Here

Who Are You?

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