It’s not like you do it in one lump sum, it’s small payments, decisions that betray yourself, that suddenly land you there— purgatory.
I wanted to change my name since I was 6 years old. I hated my father, I was embarrassed of my family, my name, who I was, I was ashamed that I didn’t have the picture ideal life I thought others had, and I wanted it.
So I HID.
I hid myself, kept shit under wraps and lied about everything. If I got bad grades, I covered them up. If I was weak, I looked strong.
I controlled what others saw, that became my only priority.
And I was really good at it.
If you were affiliated with me, you were a risk to me. That was a door to the truth, people could find out about me through you—- my family members, mom, sister.
I hid them.
Especially my sister, I controlled her. She didn’t even know I was doing it.
My fear and shame of the truth made me aggressive. I kept hiding, if u got close to me, i thought you could hurt me, so I’d make you afraid of me.
I’d tell you lies about yourself, I’d make you believe them.
I ran away from life by living a lie.
I was afraid of being weak but my anger always outgrew my fear.
My final year of high school— before I turned 18 and knew I was going to change my name, I switched schools. My first taste of a Blank slate.
My New Start.
I decided to test drive the new character, before I make it official with the name.
I decided to rewrite my past, by pretending it didn’t exist because soon, it wouldn’t. I chose to become that guy (but only by appearance).
The very first day, I came in hot. Louder than everyone, dominating, commanding. If you said shit to me, I met you with violence. AND It kept working.
Reality was whatever I said it was, everything I wanted, I got and I got it unfairly. I cheated and succeeded. The bolder I was, the more successful.
I graduated feeling the highest I ever felt, the most alive. With that momentum, I changed my name. And ran off to LA to go be famous, in I don’t even know what, but I wanted the world’s eyes, money, and attention, spent on me.
And there it started registering. It had been a long time coming, and there I signed the devils dotted line and sold my soul.
Years of presenting falsehood turned on me. I became a stranger to myself. Since I only knew how to lie, I kept trying to lie my way into success, but kept failing.
My wings looked real to you, but the sun’s rays aren’t fooled by appearances, and I fell.
I locked myself away from others. Isolated myself. I didn’t want them to see me weak. I spent 2-3 years in LA trying to fake my way into the inner circle, and I didn’t even stop to notice, I didn’t want THAT life.
But I was lucky—- none of my plans worked.
I returned home. A loser, a fraud, but still hungry for false success. Still hungry for fame and fortune.
I tried to copy others, famous people who inspired me. I could write, so I picked that field. Tried writing songs, tried writing poems, then commercials, then other random shit. Again, I didn’t want this at all, but didn’t know it, because I couldn’t understand the concept of “living your truth.”
So No success.
Another 3-4 years passed, no fruits from fraud.
Now I’m broker, older, and still have nothing to show for it.
I was so depressed I wished I could have accidentally been killed but I still held onto my visions of greatness. So I refused to do it myself.
I moved around, job hopping. Starting over and over, making fake resumes, changing locations, running from my failures and past.
The only thing I DID have (a skill from all this presenting falseness) was I knew how to make things look enticing, I knew how things needed to look to get people to respond, that, and I could kinda write. So I temporarily submitted to the idea that I might not be a star— I might not be destined for success.
With that obsession put on pause, I got my first real job as a copywriter. Unlike my pursuits, I was actually great at it, makes sense, my whole life was about getting responses from appearances.
But there was a downside, I was rewarded for the thing that cost me everything. The more I played, the higher I flew. I started acting in some ads that I wrote for the company, and felt a rush of dopamine because they performed like crazy. I was bolder, louder, dominating like my senior year pre-name change. I thought I was me again.
I started smoking weed, doing casual drugs, because I deserved it, time to party I thought– looked like I was finally about to make it.
The more I got, the emptier I felt. I started to feel my own deadness inside, my void. I couldn’t stop it from whispering to me. I knew this had to die but didn’t know what that meant or why the hell I was feeling this now when after all these years, I finally started to get what I wanted.
So I left it all behind.
I WAS DOWN BAD.
3-4 months isolated by myself, and sank lower than I ever had in my entire life. I took shrooms everyday, and was high all the time. I was doing the most drugs I ever had and documenting the whole thing, thinking maybe I was destined to create some great art so fuck it, kept feeding the fire.
But instead of art, the documenting turned into self reflection, by accident of course.
And then, I had a really bad trip.
One day, I saw something that scared the living shit out of me and I quit it all cold turkey the next day. It scared me because I knew it was true.
I saw myself.
Underneath it all,
I saw who I was living as and who I actually was, caged by my own illusions. The character I created almost convinced me he was the real me, and I was the fake? I almost lost to the devil.
I lived as a character for so long, I actually fooled myself.
I forgot who I was.
This person had different beliefs than me, and did things I was against. HE was nothing like me. My own making became my unmaking.
Until I heard something I used to run from, one word that resurrected me.
My name.
My birth name whispered to me during this trip.
All it took was remembering my name, hearing it, saying it out loud, and I got my soul back.
I could feel again.
I didn’t even know I lost that, I was used to being the living dead.
My name broke through all the falseness and finally helped me rise back. With my name back, I got my SOUL back.
AND I’M WEARING IT.
You think your creation can compete with God?
I learned first hand, imitation isn’t the same as invention. When you lie, you betray yourself and sell off little parts of you, until you— the thing that was gifted to you when you were born, is completely removed.
And the shell you designed is all you have— an empty life sentence.
Don’t betray yourself.
Live true.