Only recently have I realized that the person I've been lately is nothing more than a façade — a false representation of myself effected as a courtesy to others.  It's as if I've interpolated what society expects from me into the person I want others to think I am.  What's most shocking about it is that most people are this way — speciously correct in the eyes of society while they hide in shadows and live their real life behind closed doors, while I've never been that way until I took this job.  Honestly, I've grown to miss the real Jason.

Before I took the job I have now, everyone knew me — the real me.  I was visible.

The real me took chances and had no time for superficial niceties.  He did not prevaricate nor equivocate.  Now I dance around conversations like a ballerina walking on hot coals, and all to ensure that I'm accepted by those who have the power to hurt me.

There was a time when the real me anesthetized my logic and kept me above such imitation.  That aspect of me stayed on top of life and was like an open nerve — immediately and honestly responsive to everything and everyone, not caring who took offense, not being bothered by the small-minded morality or expectations of the world at large.

I enjoyed the wonderful tension created by sliding into uncomfortable subjects with people, much too proud to give a damn what others thought.

I was me, the me I truly am, the me I am comfortable with, the me that exists when the façades are washed away.

There was nothing I wouldn't do to get a laugh or to push the envelope.  There was no subject too controversial to be discussed, nothing left unsaid out of concern for the overactive sensitivities of the world ready to sue because they were offended.  Now I carefully weigh each and every word before it comes out of my mouth.

Outside of work, I'm still very much me.  I'm still very much the same person, the man who doesn't care what others think of me, the person who finds interest in diversity, the man who celebrates differences and finds nothing offensive (well, nothing except egg plant and sweet potatoes).

You might be wondering by now what brought all of this on.  It's something that has been on my mind quite a bit lately.  I've driven home quite often over the last few months wondering how much the people I work with really think they know about me — how much they really think they know me.

Oh, I suppose some of them think they have me figured out while others couldn't care less.  There are those, as in all companies, who simply care about appearances and couldn't care less who you really are.  To my dismay, these are the people most often in positions of power.

The truth is that I hate pretending to be someone I'm not just so I don't rock the boat around a bunch of folks who seem as intolerant as they are prude.  I just want to be me, the person I set aside to work in a place that treats employees like commodities rather than assets.

After all, if we can't be ourselves because we must fit in, the world is beyond hope and not worth saving.  It's our differences that make us who we are.  When we're forced to fit in a mold determined too long ago by people who are already dead, what does it say about our society to be so inflexible, so stagnate, so uninteresting?

To conform to the "norm" is to be a mindless automaton, a worthless lump of flesh and bone, a follower.  To conform is to be nothing.