The Lie

There’s a great lie at the center of my story. When I graduated High School I decided to be better. I set myself on the path that has changed who I am wildly.

But it’s built around a lie.

I am a large proponent of finding the subjective in the seemingly objective, and truths and lies are the perfect place to look: Lies are bad. Are they? Why are they bad? They mislead others and cause them to come to false conclusions. They conceal and hide information, and make others miss out on opportunities. They build facades in the brain that can come down with the gentlest breeze from the wrong direction.

They lead to actions built on those facades and false foundations.

I decided to better myself based on a lie. Is it a bad lie?

Well, everything has good and bad in it. They often times seemingly outweigh one another, but some are able to balance their subjective scales and find each just as worthy as the other.

I was lying to myself, misleading myself, and causing myself great pain that had not needed to occur. On the other hand, I was seeking for a truth and spiritual fulfillment that I couldn’t find. But the process of seeking was making me a better person than I had ever been.

I couldn’t find the truth because it was hiding behind the lie. The lie was the tunnel painted into a cliff face that I could run through. It kept me going until I found the right paths. Paths that led closer to the truth my lie concealed. Always, though, I was led astray by some other tempting comfort. Something promising fulfillment of a sort I wanted. Did not desire, did not need, did not even realize existed, but wanted. In the moment. At the basest, most animal place, my lie led me away from the path towards my truth like a liar inventing more lies to build their kingdom on. The lie wouldn’t go away. It didn’t want to. Ideas are as alive as Life, and they try to hold on violently.

Recently, I’ve been shining holes on the spots that my truth was peeking through. My lie had started to fade through the efforts that it had led me to put forth in the first place. It was painful. It still is. But I could see, now, the dull thrum of the truth behind the lie that had held on for so long.

I get piece after piece. I put the picture together, but I just can’t believe it’s as simple as that. THere’s no way I’ve put myself through all this pain and done all this work just to come home and realize that the ghost is just myself in a sheet.

Now, though, I accept the parts that reveal themselves to me. The lie is still hanging on, but only by threads. The tendons will snap, and soon the truth will be revealed to be what I had always chosen not to believe.

I am enough. I don’t have to be more than I am. I don’t have to be more than an emotional wreck of a musician/writer/philosopher that’s trying to figure out how to talk to women in a way that lets him be their friend. I don’t have to be more than the kid in his bedroom in his parents’ house trying to make it as a rock star on little more than a free drum plugin and his ridiculous amount of guitars. I am a human being, just like my ancestors before me, and just like my descendants after me. I am all that I am, and that is enough. No qualifiers, no quantifiers. I can demand a level of respect due to a human. I have feelings, and no one should be allowed to hurt them because “They’re coming from a place of pain.” I understand you. Understand me. Take a hold of yourself and let yourself be free. You are enough. You are not any more than you are, and neither am I. Neither is anyone. We are all enough. Learn yourself, and fill your cup with that which you already have inside you. What is your favorite thing? Is it your favorite thing? Why is it your favorite thing? What does that say about you? What does it say about me? What do we say about each other, and why are we saying these things?

Just because I’m enough doesn’t mean I can stop being better. I am enough and I can be more.

Maybe someday I’ll get there. Maybe tomorrow, I’ll really be enough. If not, then the day after. Or after that. Or after that. Or…

Will I ever be enough?

Some day.

Today.