How Important Can It Be?
Self-reflection is both something to be craved and something to be feared.
Sometimes your happiness depends solely on understanding your own inner self and the desires we so often bury deep behind our many masks. Other times, we only find happiness when we accept the image of ourselves we only long to be true, grasping and gasping in blissful ignorance.
I'd rather waste my whole life pretending than have to forget you for one whole minute.
-- Crushcrushcrush by Paramore
It's funny to me how I can hear a song for the 300th time and for some reason I finally hear the phrase I've perceived so many times before. Finally, without awareness, my mind assigns meaning and the full force of the words slams into me like a freight train in that single instant. My inner self falls to its knees, outstretched and seeking, as a silent shout resounds.
Am I less because I fail to pretend? My choice to forget brings me no less pain, only removes the option for shared suffering and the balm of friendship and understanding. How does one find the power to pretend? If ignorance is such solace, why so elusive? For some small moment, I'd like to believe that you can not know. To my ever-revolving dismay, I find in the rowdy raucous ruckus of my intellect that my grip remains resolved.
You can't not know.
