Authenticity is the hallmark of cool
Get real, people shout
When fakes and phonies are found out
Most of us aren’t
Uniquely authentic at all
Of course
We shift and hide behind our roles
Defined by life and shaped within our times
Wearing masks and costumes we don’t realize are even there
We dissimulate and redirect
Throw up a camouflage barrage
Tell white lies
Commit sins of omission
Act richer than we are for some people
But a lot poorer than we are for the taxman
Phonies
We become subject matter experts based on intuition
Forget expertise
Phonies
Now the phoniness becomes ubiquitous
Obvious, no greater need for admonishments than now
The phone culture
The phony culture
Has supplanted immediacy
Reduced capacity for awareness of the moment
This moment, here
The one found at the bottom of a mantra
We just can’t let it
Be
Since now we multitask and surf
Connected
All the time
Everywhere
Call and response
The twitter-verse
Music, games, the news and sin
Addictive as crystal meth
So we stay plugged in
Pretending and posturing
Waving the damn things like magic talismans
Having loud conversations with nobody in sight
Call my broker, yeah, right
Hard to be here now
For texting and posting
Playing Angry Birds out of nervous habit
Being phony
In a phony world
David Trudel © 2012
“To you everything that’s happening in the world appears phony, to be something other than what it really is, right?” J.D. Salinger, Catcher in the Rye
