Do you know who you are or are you playing a role?

In a way, isn’t life about playing different roles? I sometimes feel it is. I go to work putting on a work mask, I go out with friends putting on a social mask and when I am alone at home I put on, well, my real mask? There was a time when I actually hit the wall and was dragged down into depression due to this. The pressure of being someone else got too heavy and I felt that in our society today, there isn’t room for being what we really are – only for actors. And I hated it.

During my periods of sick-leave from work I started to play MMOs and in a way these games became a bit of therapy. I could play different avatars but I could also give them my own emotional and social characteristics. In these MMOs I could be what I couldn’t be in real life – my self.

I know, this is a bit deep, but I feel that life has become more of a stage (as Shakespeare would have put it) and today we have to keep many different masks up depending on situation, whereabouts and even mood. On the Internet we have a chance to create new masks and new avatars everywhere a profile is created. The question is whether we use them to be ourselves, to live our dreams or to play a role. Whatever it is I feel I am losing a part of myself each time I put on a new mask. And that can’t be good.

I don’t even know who I am anymore… I know I am a thinker, a bit of philosopher, but then what? Some might not see this as a problem, but I honestly do. I feel…divided, not complete. I feel restless, homeless and almost without identity. Am I thinking too much?