The Actor...

I think that as children we get it. We get life.

As children we notice when our freedom is being taken away, more so than we do as adults. Back then we protested and we put a hell of a fight.

We felt the world of 'conventions' pushing into our freedom and we screamed our lungs out.Those moments when it's no longer o.k to wear diapers, no longer o.k to suck your dummy, no longer o.k to play with dolls.

It happens very gradually and we're groomed from birth into the 'right behaviours'. We are told even before we know it that we are 'a girl' or we are 'a boy' and we're taught the behaviours that go with that role. We are given a name then we are taught how to respond to the calling of our name and once we identify with our name, we identify with the story that comes with it.

We are taught to speak in someone else's language with someone else's meanings and we learn to communicate in this way. And we believe 'this must be the right way'.

Sometimes, during adolescence we rebel, we act out of our role. We experience a freedom that we feel is owed to us, we try to manage our journey, we question our parents, the institutions of knowledge, we question it all. Because in that brief period we don't believe in the story we're being told and we want to create our own.

But eventually we conform, we're told 'that's not the way we do things here' and we become afraid of losing something.

We're not quite clear what it is we are afraid to lose, we conform and we follow the rules that have been around before we were borne, and evidence shows that they worked well for our fathers and those before us. So we believe 'this must be the right way'.

Sometimes during our adult life, we do feel pangs of panic, we do feel as if the life we are living is not our own or is not real. We do feel that we are playing a role. But then in those moments when it does not make sense, we are reassured by our families, our friends, our possessions that the life we live is our own, and all will be alright.

Some of us can't handle the pressure to conform, some of us opt out, others lose themselves in imaginary worlds, others numb themselves into oblivion. And gradually we forget what it is that hurts so much, and we go back to sleep, and we pray and we hope that tomorrow will be a better day.

And if we are 'lucky' and we played our role well, we can write a book about it and maybe it will be turned into a movie and someone else will get to live our life, to be us. Just like that.

We seem to be enacting the story over and over again. Different people, different times, different clothes but same story. You wonder, haven't I heard/seen this before? Yes you have, it's the story of mankind. The story of survival.

Good luck!