Kurt Vonnegut, I like to think, is a brilliant man. I’ve only read three of his fourteen novels (there was another I had started but never quite got around to finishing), and I’ve found that each one held some sort of morsel of truth. I’m not here to talk about Vonnegut’s successes and downfalls (…if there were any of the latter). What I am here to do today is to dissect some words of his, that I feel, hold some value.
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
We, as individuals, are wired to think a certain way. We place people in boxes because we think that will allow us to better understand those people as humans, I think. We all have visions of ourselves, ideas on how people perceive us. Some care how they appear to others, while some care how others appear to them. We can only give so much of ourselves to others, so I think we subconsciously put on a certain image, an image we think reflects best how our souls would look, and we show that to others because it’s all we know.
We like to think we know ourselves, we know what makes us tick, what makes us afraid, but many of us are trying to figure that out. I think the scariest thought is, how can I truly know another person, truly understand another’s soul, if I barely understand my own? I’m not exactly sure what Vonnegut was trying to say with this quote, but why I like it so much is simply because it got me thinking.
But what I think you should take away from this quote, is try to be more honest. Do things that are true to you. Spend your time doing things you enjoy, things that make you feel alive. If we don’t do those things today, who knows when we will.
