It was Sunday morning. A ping of notification woke me up from my sleep. The usual morning routine, scrolling through news feeds and mindlessly staring at the screen. It was all so easy—being one with the world at the mere touch of your fingertips. Entering a virtual reality where you can be a completely different person; perhaps more genuine and honest. The idea of people seeing the most sacred parts of you while not really knowing your whole being as a person is quite enticing—that sometimes we tend to be more real in the less fucked up versions of ourselves that we form inside this massive box. It was as if we were our own fictional characters living our own fictional world.
But one thing's for sure, sometimes we meet people and keep them long enough to know their real identities outside the comfort of this digital world. We will learn to love them as if we had met them physically at the right place and at the right time. Just like most cliches go. Sometimes, we find the lost parts of ourselves in here too. Rediscovering the things we were passionate about doing, the talents we thought we never had, the possibilities that we hadn't thought were there. Little by little you learn more of yourself and you're able to see the reflection of yourself more clearly on candid photographs, on the music you listen to, on countless private messages, and on familiar strangers that have a special place in your heart.
Someday we may wonder, which of these personas were the authentic us. Existing in two different realities can be confusing. The lines between these two worlds might slowly blur and overwhelm us at times. But should it really matter when different versions of us exist in the minds of the people that we had met?