“We are richer than we think, each one of us. Yet we are schooled for borrowing and begging! We are trained to make more use of other men’s goods than of our own.” We become complex prisms, always refracting other people’s thoughts and desires.
There are two ways to assemble those “bits and pieces.” We can use them to experiment, to try on different concepts of life to see which work for us, living with the inevitable small failures along the way. Or we can use them to deflect, to refigure for every circumstance, becoming in each person’s presence a different form. We all do this to some extent, but some people turn it into their default setting.
While I have sympathy for those who take on those masks and roles, especially for those who feel it is a necessity to survive, I am also saddened by it. There is no single authentic way to live and the quest for it is often counterproductive. But we can do damage to our souls by making them too pliable, too agreeable to popular opinion. We all need our own sour points of view and pet favorites, even if we share them sparingly.