What is the difference between fiction, pretence and reality, truth?
There is no difference as long as you can pretend with impeccability.
Fiction has however an advantage over reality. It is based upon a creative choice, an act of will and not upon life circumstances, what is already there.
For example, pretending to be happy, playing happiness, is a creative act aimed at giving form to happiness, as such it requires intelligence, sensitivity, willpower, initiative, capacity to change, whereas being happy, is something that happens to us, which depends upon something else.
When you learn to pretend well, you can decide what is real, without depending on circumstances of reality.
Fiction is an evolved reality, known only by initiates, by those who are capable of challenging reality, giving form to the reality they choose.
The majority of people want to be happy, yet in wanting to be happy there is no actual act of will. It is a possibility, something that may happen, and even if it does happen, it could not happen anymore.
Hence the more we insist in wanting to be happy, the more it is unlikely that we achieve happiness.
Yet, if you truly wish to be happy, as a result of your choice, in total autonomy, without depending upon anything or anybody, then you can pretend to be happy.
And if you are able to pretend well, you can be happy just in this moment and continue to be happy as long as you choose.
In a world where many realities and truths that purport to be real and true are unreal and untrue, a fiction which acknowledges itself as fiction is definitely far more honest and transparent, and as such real and true.
When you pretend with awareness you can become aware of the many times you pretend without being aware.
And also when you pretend to be what you want to be, you may tap into a hidden part of yourself who has already achieved what you believed you were not.
Fiction can be the gateway towards your true reality, who and what you have always been but never dared to be.
© Franco Santoro