The Forum of Censorship
Ours is an age of stimulation. An age of feel-good-right-the-fuck-now. An overriding social expectation to always be a-okay, and if you are not, then something is definitively wrong with you, and you should of course examine what the hell is your problem. How can your answer to “How are you?” be anything other than “Fine”?
Social media reinforces said mental belief that everyone is leading amazing, fulfilling lives! Open your Instagram; instantly, you see perfect pictures of your family and friends laughing, smiling, and satisfied. Or your neurotic buddy partying it up. Maybe your ex posting yet another one of their “spiritual awakening” posts.
These pictures are nothing more than a fake facade created to hide our insecurities and shortcomings. The thinking goes: the more shame I hide, the better I will feel. When, paradoxically, the more shame you hide, the more you mentally repress and the more shame dictates your actions.
We are taught by social media to put a filter over that shame, a filter over life. We hide our flaws, fake our happiness, and wear masks over our heads. We pretend to be something we are not. This is socially-encouraged self-censorship, and, I ask, why do we censor ourselves? Our fear of rejection? Our fear of loneliness? Our fear of forming a genuine connection with another human being and not being able to bullshit ourselves or them any more? Because as long as we allow this self-censorship to continue, we are telling ourselves it is not okay to be us, and that we are not enough.
You are enough.
Inside of you exists a voice, a shout. A blood-curdling scream that hurls itself from the bottom of your stomach to the top of your chest. An energy demanding you release it. Each second, minute, and day you spend censoring this primordial instinct, you deny yourself, and that is a fate worse than death.
This censorship encourages our isolation, our social death. We cover our failures, not realizing our wounds are etched on our skin. These wounds are us. My dear reader, how can we ever be ashamed of who we are? Of what our scars and mistakes represent? Of what we’ve bled for?
Our struggles determine our successes. So choose your struggles wisely, my friend.
Mark Manson
You are not the sum of your successes. You are not your Instagram page. You are not what everyone thinks you are. You, ultimately, are the direct result of every failure you have responded to. Every stab, wound, and bullet hole you’ve bandaged. Every grand fuck-up you’ve overcome.
Your scars teach you far more than any pat on the back can. Success doesn’t bestow upon us a lesson; it reinforces what we have already learned. Failure, however, kicks our asses, stabs us in the arm, and leaves a huge scar till we learn the required lesson.
So wear your scars and be proud of them. You wouldn’t be you if you hadn’t fucked up, if you hadn’t been rejected, if you hadn’t failed, and if you hadn’t gone through multiple shitty experiences. Instead of rejecting these experiences and denying yourself, accentuate every battle you have lost because then you shall see every war you’ve won.
End the censorship.
