Delusional

Probably because it's a straightforward conversation piece, pretty much everyone I saw this break asked me "How is college?"

I usually gave the same answer, though of course with some variation: "I'm really happy there, I like it a lot (feigned exclamation point)."

It's actually a question I asked myself a few times during the semester -- a preoccupation with the question of happiness stuck with me from high school -- and each time, I'd told myself that I was happy. Then when other people asked me, I would again say yes, I was happy.

The thing is, I didn't actually believe what I was saying at first. But eventually I did.

I wonder: maybe happiness is merely a form of self-delusion. After all, if you're deluding yourself effectively enough, it's not as if you would be able to tell the difference.

"That crazy banana guy"

As far as I remember, no one has ever asked me this, but for the sake of argument, I'll lie and pretend someone did. So:

"Ryan, why do you act so crazy?"
Well you see, young grasshopper, I act so crazy because.....

Because...

....well, because I'm not. 

I make retarded faces in photos not because I'm some crazy fool or a fun-loving bro. No, I make myself look stupid because I'm an insecure bastard. Pretending I'm at one of the extremes (in my case, by being crazy) is simply a way for me to avoid judgment of my normal self.

So I put on this mask of being extremely crazy.


In some ways, the first week of AID was actually an experiment for me to see how difficult it would be to put on a new mask and still be convincing. I wanted to see how far I could get with putting on a show of being a class clown and a fairly relaxed guy that doesn't worry about things. I wanted to try to redefine myself, now that I was in a new environment.

Well, if the comments I received on the last two days of training are any indication, I guess I did a pretty good job.

Andrew brings up an important point, though; suppose I were alone in a room, with no one to watch or listen to me. If the Bee Gees or whatever started playing, I'm pretty sure I would still sing along with my inane falsetto and contort my face like it went through a smoothie blender. And if the banana song came along, I definitely would start bobbing my head around and doing the motions.

So maybe the mask is already a part of me. Maybe every time I put on a different persona, I'm not actually pretending to be someone I'm not, but merely changing which layer of my personality is on the surface.

A bit dishonest, but it's infinitely more interesting that way.