Acceptance. I’m pretty much screwed without it. No amount of affirmation, gratitude or inclusion will ever fill the gaping hole left by not being accepted for who I really am. Needing to pander to the dictates of others, or suppress my true nature from fear of ridicule leaves me wanting for life. I could easily be Charlie Chaplin or Jim Carrie if I felt confident enough to show my silly side. It’s often this silly side that makes me feel most human.
I have an underlying need on occasion to abandon decorum amongst those that I trust will not use that moment of surrender as a yardstick against which to measure me. Moments like that would make me feel so much more wholesome. But I do not see any that I can trust in this way any longer.
It’s not possible to live a life of perpetual pompous parades of good etiquette or restrained manners every moment of my life. Such unnatural behaviour has turned me into the jaded bitter old man that I am. Realising the need for social order on one hand, but also knowing that if unrestrained I will probably be shunned. I am not as contradictory or hypocritical as I may sound right now. This surrender I desire is not a surrender of principles or ethics, nor morals or discipline. It’s simply a surrender of control and restraint in being able to express myself in the most natural and colourful way I am capable of. With dignity of course. Always with dignity.
I used to reduce many to stuttering, blubbering, gyrating, tearing, helpless bundles of laughter because of my antics and my humour, but I have no inclination nor motivation to express that side of me any more. I have no inclination for a life fully lived. The romantic notions I write about are lost concepts to my present being. Distant memories of a youth never lived. I am faced with a reality that spits in the face of my aspirations, and just saying that literally conjures up images in my head of venomous interactions of previous lives.
I am a recluse under construction. I do not fit in, nor do I aspire to any more. I despise the erosion of sincerity that I witness around me, and I refuse to play any part in it. I am not socially anxious, nor inept. Nor do I have a mental illness or disorder that predisposes me to this behaviour. My only shortcoming is that I expect more than people are willing to expose of themselves. Our embellished facades shall be protected to our very last breath. And I will protrude like a hernia against the six pack of a society that is obsessed with image but lacks substance.