You're a fool no matter what. The moment you feel inflated by the apparent self-confidence or self-depreciation that possess you, you should know it to be true.
All ambition, all notions of grandeur and importance, your status in the world, all feelings of worthlessness and objectification by others, the entire form and structure of your self-image is merely an attempt to further the deceit.
We spend the entirety of our lives playing a game of hide and seek. We build a self, or perhaps one is built for us, and we hold on to it for dear life, because without it we cease to exist. All status, identity, purpose, feelings of loss and depression, loneliness, belonging, grief and joy, all self-constructed ideas of oneself in the world is a trick.
You are a fool and so too am I. But who is the one that executes the deceit? Is it me? Is it you? Who would we be if we were not?
Do you not know that there comes a midnight hour when every one has to throw off his mask? Do you believe that life will always let itself be mocked? Do you think you can slip away a little before midnight in order to avoid this? Or are you not terrified by it?
Søren Kierkegaard
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