Encylopædia Draconica

I'm pretty good at expressing myself, something I used to be pretty bad at.

Like many, I tried to construct a persona and maintain it. A tedious and pointless activity, because what you truly should do is not to construct a persona, but deconstruct it.

Why constructing a persona doesn't work so well? There are several reasons:
1. You have to keep your constructed image of self in mind. This increases cognitive load.
2. Any discrepancies triggers anxiety and a desire to remove oneself from the situation that unveils discrepancy. This mostly applies to perfectionists (I am a perfectionist btw).
3. People in general have a smell for a "fake persona" and they will generally be drawn away from fakers and favor authenticity.

Me personally, I just don't want to hang out with people who build a self-image so obviously, so blatantly that it seems you're getting drawn into a theatrical show. The worst part of being involved is that you are not supposed to break their role, or you're the bad person; everybody should be allowed to save their face because it's a moral thing to do. Morality-shmorality, am I right? Why can't I just yell "FAKER" at them and go about my day? Because I could be wrong?.. Well that's also partly true, so you can see why it's generally awkward to be around the persona builders.

In a way, we all are persona builders. Even if we don't construct an image we blindly follow, we at least have an image of Better Self in our heads that we aspire to be or even think that we partly possess the qualities of Better Self even if others would not agree. That's very natural, just as natural as imagining a house you want to build even before you lay the foundation. Actually you have to know what you're building before you start the foundation, or you may end up with something you don't want.

So to Build a Self is to Build a Self and not Build a Self — yet another manifestation of Dao. Have I told you about Dao before, dear reader? It's the school of thought where you allow these kind of paradoxes to shape your existence. In Dao, non-action means "action without thought", but not really without thought, it's just you don't act on your thought, but on your guts, but not really. Dao is a very cool and unorthodox way of thinking without thinking, and I invite you to try it.

Now let's talk about the Authenti City, the Capital of the Soul, which is the province of the Body. In this city live all the things that you truly are. They shine through you so brightly that people will notice if you try to be something that's not these things. That's why you deconstruct yourself first to figure out what shines brightly within you and then build upon that. You are a product of your internal factors as much as you are a product of external factors, and these must coexist in harmony, or your Authenti City collapses. It's not like the whole city gets destroyed, it just becomes an unwelcoming ghetto where everyone is paranoid.

I didn't want to write this blog post, but I wanted to finish it very badly so I could write something else, that's why it may seem a bit exaggerated and jumpy. On the other hand, I told here a lot of things I wanted to tell. According to Dao, your silence speaks, and your speech is mute. You must give a shot at Dao, dear reader, it's so much fun.