The Plagiarized Life

I would rather be what God chose to make me than the most glorious creature that I could think of; for to have been thought about, born in God's thought, and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest and most precious thing in all thinking. –George MacDonald

Plagiarizers are actors in a play neither written nor directed by them. All of the songs they sing are covers. Even their chosen virtues and sins are worn like ill-fitting suits because they took them off the rack of clothes valued by their culture or religious sub-culture. They do not think their own thoughts, come to their own conclusions, or feel their own feelings. On the contrary, they allow their cultures to think and feel through their brains and hearts.

With some people, this unoriginality is fear based. We fear rejection. We fear standing out and being different. We fear making “wrong” decisions and, so, base our choices on statistical analysis: “What is everyone else who matters to me doing?” There is also the case where, while there is nothing we want more than to be visible for whom we truly are, there is also nothing we fear more: a paralyzing psychological state in which to live, for sure.  

I think this last fear sometimes points to a state of self-hatred. “O, I know who I am and that guy is a loser, a zero.” Or at least we fear this is the case, so we live a plagiarized life. Not wanting to be outted as the loser we fear that we are, we choose the persona of movie actor, or saint, or one of our parents, or an amalgamation of all those personality traits so highly valued by our friends and coworkers. All of this is unsatisfying and leaves us feeling empty, because the approbation we receive is for a role we are playing, not for the person we truly are. And we know this.

Then there are those of us who are like reeds in the wind. Giving absolutely no thought to such questions as, “Who am I?” or “Who has God created me to become?” we are products of every wind and current of fashion in our immediate world. We are passive-ists before all the circumstances of our world: I am whomever the winds make me.

Really now, is this how we wish to live our short lives here on earth? Throw away those suits, take off those masks, and defy the fears and the fear mongers. And know this: It is not the self you should hate but that which the self is not. Reclaim your heart, mind, and soul, as your own possessions.

You are a once in eternity individual who was fearfully and wonderfully made by the God who is Love, Beauty, and Goodness. Believe me. As you begin discovering your self, you will find reflections of these divine attributes. Your individuality is a gift to you and the world in which you live. The self that you truly are: that person is inimitable and irreplaceable. 

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2013