“I knew nothing but shadows and I thought them to be real.” That's a quote by Oscar Wilde from his classic The Picture Of Dorian Gray. If you have not read that book, you really need to read more. It is an amazing story. Yet I didn't pick this quote to talk about the story. Instead, I want to talk about life, the people we meet, and the things we pretend to be when we don't think we will be caught.
There are so many ways to approach this subject, The easiest was is to just think about a close friend that you have known for years. Oftentimes I find they act one way when they are in a group of similar friends, and another way when they are around people that they know, but that you don't. This isn't always the case, but I think it happens often enough that we have all seen it once or twice. When I was in high school, there were a number of loose clicks. One group was very preppy and many of the guys played sports while a good number of the girls were cheerleaders. A second group were more like hippies (to put it nicely), while a third was made up of the better students (nerds I guess, though that wasn't the way they seemed to me). Oddly enough, I fit easily into all three of the groups and had friends within each. As I said, these were not real clicks where everyone consciously tried to fit into one of the groups...it kind of more was just how it was. Given I had friends in all three, I often saw how people's behaviors would change as they approached a group or actually hung out with a group that they usually didn't associate with. Jocks who would stop to talk to me when I was talking to some of my druggie, er hippy friends would be stiff when they first walked up and acted a bit tougher than they usually did. Not to me, but to the others. As if they were expecting trouble. Meanwhile, my hippy-type friends would shy away from stopping to talk to me if I was hanging out with my "jock" friends. Meanwhile, my "smart" friends rarely got any reactions from either of the other two groups. It was almost as if they were known to be smart and considered harmless. Looking back now, it was really silly. Everyone had these preconceived ideas about the people who were not "like" them, and oftentimes they were a bit leery of each other. I was in an odd position because I was accepted in each group. I partied on the weekends with my friends from when I was younger, and a lot of them fell into the hippy category. Meanwhile, I played sports and so I fit in easily with the jocks too. I was also in honor English, History and Science so the smart kids were comfortable with me too. What was odd was that when I was younger only three or four of my friends recognized the clicks. Most really didn't see any click at all. Most just believed that they didn't hang out with certain people because they didn't sit near them in class usually so they never got a chance to hang out. Given I hung out with all three of the main types at my school, I can tell you from experience that weed and drinking were prevalent among all three groups. Some weekends I would go out drinking with guys who were considered jocks. Other times it would be with the hippies. Hell, even the smart kids partied. I knew lots of stoners in each of the groups...both guys and girls. Shadows. We were all shadows, without even knowing it. Everyone seemed to have a place where they fit in the world and when the mold was broken and someone ended up around a different set of people awkwardness usually ensued...at least for a few minutes. And the stereotypes held. When I think back about people from high school, I still think back on them as how they were, even though I have seen pictures of many of them and know they don't look like they once did any longer. And don't act as they once did either. I drank heavily in high school and college. Right up until I was in my early thirties in fact. Yet I haven't had a drink in nearly seventeen years now. In the end, we are who we are now, but we are not who we were then. So were we shadows then, or are we shadows now? Shadows of our old selves. What is really the true us. Who we are now, or who we were then? Or is either version the true us?
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