The World of Truth – Part One: The Man

Sometimes, when I think about our world, it seems like it’s the largest Play ever performed. We walk around dressed in costumes with painted faces and pretend. We do things we don’t like so we can be accepted. We hide our weirdness to fit in with others who are hiding theirs, in order to feel a connection with other people’s characters, never realizing we are all just playing pretend. We reveal more to those closest to us, but we still hide certain parts and continue pretending that we don’t know certain truths. No one is completely free of this life-like acting show. We aren’t even completely honest with ourselves. We shame ourselves for the way we think, the things we desire and especially any time we screw up our lines and don’t play our characters to the satisfaction of those watching.

Nowhere is this charade more clear than in the act of trying to be what the play considers to be a Man. In so many ways, this is one of the most toxic motivations/characters we try so hard to expect or portray. There is hope though. There is the real World of Truths, a common consciousness, hidden behind the masks, that we all know exists. It comes out in so many ways, but too often it is shunned back behind the curtains. We need to embrace this connection we all have to each other through the World of Truth. To do so, we must first be able to look at The Play, and realize what a sickening and depraved performance it can be.

The Play will always make you feel like you are not good enough, because it is built upon a construct of lies that we project to each other based upon our perceived images of what other people want to see. In simpler terms, we are all playing characters that we think will appeal to others, never realizing that other people are doing the same, and hating ourselves because we feel like we have to fake it while everyone else just does it naturally and with ease. In doing this, we constantly view each others portrayals, and attempt to alter ours in turn, while they do the same. While this means the characters societies develop are constantly changing, the law of averages (along with mass disapproval of any extreme deviation) creates certain characters that last for generations.

The character of The Man in this Play is not someone any male should wish to be, yet almost all put extreme effort to play this character or to suppress personality traits that don’t align with it enough. Males, females and transgenders alike all feel deep emotions, yet males are consistently told to suppress those feelings. We tell each other not to cry, even though we all have felt that desire, and so we put on the mask and shame others if they dare take it off. We are constantly told to never express affection and sentimentality, especially towards other men. And those who show how much they care about something substantial are instantly ridiculed.

We are told The Man is a great fighter, and so we all fantasize about being able to physically harm each other with skill and ease. It doesn’t matter that our rational minds tell us how counterproductive, destructive, dangerous, and evil, inflicting damage upon each other could be… but if The Man is supposed to do it, we desire to do the same. The Man eats meat, and lots of it; his health, the environment and animals be damned. The Man can drink a lot of alcohol without having the effect that drinking a lot of alcohol has on humans (so you better start practicing!). The Man hunts and kills animals without remorse. The Man asserts his dominance instead of compromising. The Man puts The Woman into her place, and consumes as many of them as possible. The Man puts his efforts and labor into obtaining the best Toys. The Man destroys his inferiors, takes as much as he can, and is never satisfied no matter how many he hurts with his insatiable want.

This character is one that every male (or masculine inclined other gender) has either tried to emulate, or has felt intense pressure to emulate from others within the play. Even if we don’t in any way agree with this fabricated idea of the character, we still harbor resentment at ourselves for not being inclined to want to fit that mold. The saddest part about this character, is that mostly all of the traits are destructive in nature. I truly believe that this pressure to dominate others or destroy in order to achieve that dominance, is one of the main reasons why men are so disproportionately responsible for mass shootings. The fact that The Play pushes people towards destruction should be a clear sign that it is in many ways a disease that we need to cure ourselves of.

A true man can not be defined by any one person, for me to describe my idea would just be another description of a mask that I am projecting. Just because the one I believe in is not destructive doesn’t make it any less of a mask than The Man character I just described is. We all have our own peculiarities and differences, as well as similarities and a connection to universal truths. As much as I wish for the parts in this sub-series of my Weekly Writings to expose and destroy many aspects of The Play, I admit that I don’t think we will ever be truly free of our tendency to mold our society and thus our lives in that fashion. While I believe very strongly in the World of Truth and our shared connection to it, I think we will always in some way project an image that we think others want to see, and we will always try to hide certain aspects of ourselves, even if we come to realize how much we truly share with each other. My hope, though, is that we can at least alter the way we project into The Play and have it encourage each other to be non-destructive to ourselves, each other, and the world.

In this version of The Play, a man would be strong, but not for the ability to cause harm. Instead the strength would be for him to be the best person he can be through adversity, and to protect those that he loves. A man would be kind to those weaker than him, and use any exceptional ability he has in order to make the world better for others. A true man would care deeply about the things he loved and not be afraid to admit it. He would be able to cry, to show affection and express his fears and vulnerabilities. He would focus his efforts on making the world a better place instead of only his own gain. He would care for himself, his health, his family, friends, animals and the earth. A true man in my ideal version of the play would realize just how stupid destruction and dominance truly is, and would use his strength to lift others up instead of stomping them down.

Even with how amazing that may sound, building up any character, even a positive one, is what will ensure constant insecurity and desire. So, even while I hope that we can alter our projections of the character of The Man enough to help curb the destructive natures of our society, I also caution building up any character that no person will ever fit 100%. We must also be accepting of our faults and our shortcomings. We must accept our weaknesses as well as our strengths. We must be okay with not fitting others expectations, whether they be destructive or positive.

Being the best version of you doesn’t mean becoming someone else. You can and should strive to be a good person and to have a positive impact on the world, but the pursuit of imaginative perfection is what creates the play in the first place. Know, and project, that you have faults and flaws and shortcomings while also accepting others when they admit theirs. We can all benefit from trying to be the best we can while still admitting to each other that we have no idea what we’re doing and what life is all about. This acceptance of our true selves and each other (in all our messy glory) is the first step to breaking down The Play and finding the true connection we have to each other.