Hiralious

Pretend that you are well adjusted in your life, at all times. It has the obvious perks. No one asks you unnecessary questions , you don't have to doubt yourself much , you can lead life on autopilot and it is less taxing because you have to make a far smaller number of decisions.  You can divert your focus and energy on other pursuits, or you can just be passive and watch Netflix. No need to grapple with uncomfortable emotions at the core of your heart.
  Milestones matter. Wedding matters. Photoshoots matter. What happens in marital bed does not matter. Your hells are your private hells and your celebrations are an open invitation for the world to partake in. (This imbalance alone should indicate how abnormal virtual life is) . Then babies come. Then they get enrolled in school. The perks are that you are not pausing to doubt your own authenticity as a woman who doesn't bear any scar from a c section, You are too busy to do that ; more and more people nod their heads. You say this is the highest form of love. I say you had the entire humanity to love , choosing your own offspring to love is not as heroic as you people are making us believe .
   Looking beautiful matters. Being happy does not so much. Because all around us the desirability of people is decided by their beauty/status. Believe it or not, our first perception of a woman/person is about her beauty. And that is ok. What's not ok is if you don't grow up to see more, and if she doesn't grow up to offer more. There is genuine pain, happiness , longing at the center of our hearts. Connecting to it is more beautiful than the most beautiful thing/place/person in the whole world. But  we are burying it . Hiding it from our partners , being 'warriors ' in our own minds without considering whether this war against self is even necessary ?
   How.. why... must it be so hard to be yourself ? You ask. Sometimes I genuinely wonder. That feels like the hardest thing in the world. To be a person far less beautiful, far less eloquent, far less desirable but far more kinder , far more genuine , full of unapologetic sexual energy and beaming with boundless joy , tearing up at the sadness of others , soaking emotions , writing stories, losing myself and being happy because some moments are just so wholesome ; why did I , and we all suffer from this collective illusion that all that looks good is good. All of our efforts are being utilized to that end.  The answer comes to me. That is because as obvious as the prize looks , the mirth of self containment, the feeling of being happy in your own skin , being a flowing river of compassion and understanding, as obvious it looks to the eye , it is difficult to achieve because of the fear of unfamiliar.  It is perhaps the absolute best state a human mind can be in. But to get there you have to let go. Of everything.
Of your reluctant jealousy, of your complacency , of your chains , of your lovely associations that root your feet to the spot , of the fear that you will be questioned about your very thoughts which feel as honorable to you as the word of the God you wished you believed in , of the need to get that lipstick she wore , of the need to be anything better than you. It is not easy. Because it is surprising how many things and people you will lose just by stripping yourself bare of the halo you built around yourself.  You even stand to lose your own idea of who you were.

That is why it is as hard as it is inituitive , to be yourself.  That is why we live life on an autopilot. Some of the lucky ones get a jolt in the form of a near death experience , others pretend that this is what life is, and die of buried regrets. Some like me, wonder about it and write , then maybe forget about it or act on it. Time will tell.