It’s not that I’ve ‘faked my own death’ as the saying goes. Maybe it’s that I’ve ‘faked my own life,’ and in doing so I’ve yet to realize how dead I really am.

You can dress up greed, but you can’t stop the stench.

To ‘pretend’ is to say that I’m willing to waste the precious energy that it takes to pretend, and I’m unwilling to cultivate the bravery that it takes to be real. And I am at a complete loss to pretend that either of these aren’t true.