Give me real and raw
20 million Chinese people get plastic surgery every year, mostly of the cosmetic type, to enhance, uplift, and change their appearance.
I see people, mostly young women, on the beach, getting the perfect Insta pose, the effort exhausting and endless.
A beautiful young woman walks by, covered in at least $40,000 worth of tattoos and fake boobs. I wonder how she can afford it.
Porn sites are the most clicked sites on the internet, above any other. Young men learn from porn sites that women are disposable, should be treated as chattel, where abuse and exploitation are normal.
Politicians and business leaders lie in every second sentence.
And we wonder what is real?
I want real. I want raw. I want true.
Artifice and costume are fine for special occasions. But the effort to project a facade is exhausting.
There is a longing, I sense, for the raw truth. Truth as a blunt instrument. When we hear it, there is an exhale. Finally.
Oh finally! It has been named.
When people reveal themselves without pretence, humble, absent any projected suave and shit-together, it grants permission for all our collective facades to drop.
It is exhausting, this effort to uphold lies and illusion.
Give me real and raw, anytime.
Photo May 3rd 2025, Article written May 5th 2025
