CONTRIVED LIFE: A SHORT STORY

He had written five novels over the years, none of which was ever published.  The reason they were not published, according to the editors, publishers, and literary agents he sent the manuscripts to, was because they felt contrived.  They sounded too “made up.”

It occurred to him that this was true of his entire life.  In college, in his jobs, in his personal relationships, people always would say to him, “Fine, but it’s not you.  It’s not who you really are.” 
 
Everything he did he came off somehow as artificial, inauthentic, phony, as if he was putting on an act, even though he tried desperately to convince everyone to the contrary.  He was attempting to make everyone believe he was what he wasn’t, apparently.  Even worse, he was trying to make himself believe he was what he wasn’t.

So he wasn’t a poet, a playwright, a psychologist, a stagehand, a stage carpenter, a stage rigger, a professor, a novelist, a painting contractor, a t.v. story analyst, an author, a proofreader, or an editor.

He had followed his head, exclusively, and not his heart at all, so what he wound up with was a contrived life.  Now, in his old age, he was able to see who he actually was, or more correctly feel who, in fact, he was, called purification in Vedanta. 
 
In short, to find out who he was, he had to find out who he wasn’t, first.  It took a lifetime, in his case.  Many never do discover who they are.  No one ever says to them, “Fine, but it’s not you.”