My Life Compared to Truth, Fear, and Fiction

How I seem to think, how I act, and what I do is something I carefully control. Portrayal is something I carefully consider and contemplate. When I was asked to write a blog for English, I was hesitant, almost fearful. Writing is something that helps me stay true to myself. I write everyday so that I still can be connected to the truth. Knowing that my peers would be reading what I had to say made me reconsider always being truthful. I don't always want people to know what I think. Having always been ostracized for being different, sharing what makes me different is something I stay away from. I craft how people see me, I craft how people perceive my personality, and I craft people into thinking I am different than how I am. Complete honesty is something I've never been comfortable with.

While discussing the relationship between truth and fiction in class, I realized that is how I control peoples perception of me. I take a truth and change it just enough that it now morphs into fiction. For example, it is fiction when I say I am happy, but it is the truth that certain situations and details in life bring me temporary happiness. I let my statements be absolute when not everything in life is like that. The conversation about truth and fiction made me realize that the fiction I use in my life is based on fear. There are so many ways that truth and fiction correlate, but in my life and in my words, my connection is through my creation of the truth because of fear. 

Just as Tim O'Brien the author of The Things They Carried created fiction that was based on truth, I create fiction as a defense mechanism, also based on truth. The topic of lies is often discussed in The Things They Carried, and a quote that stood out to me especially was:

"A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth" -Tim O'Brien of The Things They Carried

When it talks of something not happening, I think of the words that I say on paper and don't speak aloud. It happens to me, but it isn't witnessed by others. This something that is true to me, but it isn't to others, so it may be debated if it occurs. When something happens that people see about me, they may assume a truth regarding to my person, but it can be a lie. Lies and truths is about perception and who it is true to. This made me rethink what the truth is regarding to my person, and how I can be less fearful about myself.