There lay the devil

Who are you when the crowds are gone and it is just stillness and aloneness? What is your definition of self? You need to know that, you need to know it before you step back into the crowd. Know it, keep it, safeguard it. Or else you become lost in the hustle and bustle of it. Losing yourself, and what are you when you have lost yourself? Your identity is held hostage by the perceptions of others. What a pathetic place to be.

I had a conversation with a friend the other day and told her I’m scared of staying sad about something for so long that my definition of self cannot be distinguished from the emotion. You wear a mask for so long the mask becomes you.

You wear sadness like this sort of mask, and yes, you are allowed to. You have to fight that though. Fight the urge to be a victim. Don’t wear the mask for so long lest you lose your identity without it. The urge to be annoyed, to be blamed, to say you have been wronged. How could that be addictive, you ask? But it is. Addictive to absolve yourself of all responsibility. I say: I am right, I am an angel, I am good, and even though I have been good, I have been wronged. And so you excuse your laziness as it hides itself under the beautiful cloak of righteousness. It becomes your friend, and then it becomes your identity.

Fight the sadness. The sadder you get, the more beautiful the cloak of righteousness beams. You stay admiring the beauty of the cloak, but you forget it feeds on you. It feeds on your potential, your happiness, and your very self. Starve it.

I heard a voice sing to me a tune of self pity. So melodious but in a moment of silence my voice prevailed to remind me “This isn’t you”. Who is speaking through me? Who is feeding these thoughts? In the corner of my mind I saw a figure in a beautiful cloak. I pulled back the hood, and there sat the devil. Victimhood, draped in righteousness, singing a seductive tune of self-destruction.

As I walked closer and stole a peek beneath the veil, I gasped. There lay the devil. Lazy as ever, dressed in the beautiful cloak of righteousness. There lay the devil, cunning as ever. He would have gotten away with it too. There lay the devil.