Cloudscape

In a world of lies, honesty is the greatest sin. Being one’s true self is self-pity. And aside from the prescribed clichés, anything we might say is either selfish or meddlesome. When we’re sharing our daily mantras, we might as well bark as dogs do. The level of meaningfulness would be about the same, were it not that at least dogs still put some emotion in their barking. When we’re talking at all instead of chanting, all we are exchanging is but dead and deadening information. The only thing in which people are still somewhat together, then, is in the things they do — sadly, there is a very great deal we no longer dare to do. The few that still resist this compulsive inhibition are seen as irresponsible or even insane.
In our dishonesty, when someone else is honest and we cannot deal with their honesty, we are ourselves too dishonest to let them know this, but rather neglect them. Since it is seen as rude to be honest, we take it for granted that others should be just as dishonest as ourselves — those who are not dishonest are ignored.
Rather, should we not express ourselves just as much in our feelings of our own as in our feelings about others' feelings? Would it not make more sense to tell others just how close they can get to us rather than to never get closer to each other than two strangers?
Why do even friends remain at a distance that is dictated to them by society? How can people live in such detachment from one another? How could we let it come so far that we keep our hearts shut just because it is the only way we can still know that they will not get hurt or hurt others? If we would just tell others how much they can share their emotions with us, then there is no need for them to hide them altogether. If others' feelings hurt us when they share, we as well should share this. There is no way one can know in advance when one's feelings will hurt someone; some are used to others' feelings, others are not. But can we just shut up altogether because all things we say have a chance of making others feel uncomfortable?
We can but tell each other inhowfar we can deal with listening to their secrets, or else remain in our ice-cold panzers.