If I don’t want to be known, I cannot be known.
The best actor can divide role from self.
The best liar can divide truth from falsity.People think that they know you. Soon you begin to play the role that they place on you. Why should you act a certain way to please others? You should do things from your inner awareness and from your own feelings. If they do not accord with the herd, then so much the better.
You should change when it pleases you. Your life is flexible. If you let other people shape you, then you will never know independence.
The sages say that all life is illusory, and they usually lament this. The way of Tao is to use this fact and not let it oppress you. If you want to dodge others, then step behind one of the myriad illusions in this world. If you do not volunteer anything and you neither confirm nor deny, the opinions of others can never stick to you. Then you will be left in peace.
True sages never go by appearances. When it comes to introspection, they are not deceived by the appearances their own minds spew out. They know that if they want to get at the truth, then they must pierce to the very core.
So if you would hide from others, avail yourself of the false appearances of life. If you would know yourself, distinguish between the false appearances of life. Above all, do not be put off by the illusory nature of life. Use it. Everything in this life can be an advantage to the wise.
“We are like chameleons, we take our hue and the color of our moral character, from those who are around us.”
— John Locke
“We are chameleons, and our partialities and prejudices change place with an easy and blessed facility, and we are soon wonted to the change and happy in it.”
— Mark Twain
The chameleon changes color to match the earth, the earth doesn’t change color to match the chameleon. — Senegalese Proverb
What’s the animal that always changes color? A chameleon. I feel kind of like that. Because if they’re nervous or scared or they don’t trust someone, they have a different sort of camouflage. But as soon as they warm up to someone, they reveal their true colors. — Gina Gershon
When I was a teenager, my mom once gave me a card addressed to “the daughter I don’t know” because I acted in ways that didn’t please her or meet her expectations. Most people say I am difficult to get to know very well, thinking I’m just a calm, unusually happy person who is pretty quiet . Yet, I understand other people very well and come to know them very quickly, and can have an awful lot to say if people really want to know what I’m thinking, as those who bother to read my blog know. Most people are simply more content to prattle on about themselves or tell me what they think and feel, however. I listen and take it all in, and end up knowing far more about them than they ever learn about me.
Perhaps the things that I intuit so quickly about others are things they expect the other person to tell them about without prompting. But I guess I always figured that if people wanted to know me badly enough, they ought to put a little effort into it. That way I know they are actually interested in me, and not just in whatever it is they happen to want from me at that moment.
And there isn’t much that I really want or need from other people. Just toss a few crickets my way, and I’m happy to sit on my branch in the sun. I’ve always been fiercely independent, until I became even more fiercely interdependent. I’ll gladly hide my true colors until someone threatens my interests or those of my friends or family, and then, look out. There are those who know all too well how bright my colors can get!
2 Responses
Thank you, Donna, for baring (and sharing) some of your “colors” for us to regale in…they are always beautiful, quite often changing (!) right before our eyes…keep up your colorful take on life and again, thanks for letting us take a peek every now and then.
[…] LEAPING LIZARD: The flying dragon can glide for up to 50 meters (164 feet). It jumps from a tree and spreads out folds of skin. These folds act as wings and let the lizard glide through the air. Yi (pronounced “yee”), is usually translated as Change or changes. Philosophically, it is primordial change, inscribed in the actual order of things, the on-going process of the real or Way. It gives us the seeds and the symbols through which life and spirit can transmit and extend themselves. The meanings of this truly magical name include making a gift, healing a sickness, calming and tranquilizing the spirit, pulling up weeds, cultivating a field. It is the sun appearing after clouds, thanks to the intervention of an ancestor. It is the name of a frontier region, and suggests borderline or liminal states of mind and place. The Chinese character in its various forms contains the graphs for sun and moon and for a lizard or chameleon. […]