You learn in life. And every day you learn anew. There may be nothing new under the sun, but you may not retain what you learn all that well. We are speaking now of learning how to live life, how to be in that place where you make life for yourself and others more amenable and more splendid.

Even as you resist life, you relish it. What a story life is! And what stories it has to tell!

The characters in a fiction story reveal themselves in every word and action by the way they look, their tone of voice, a glance of their face, the way they walk, by what they wear, and by what they don't say as well as what they do. Yet characters are characters within characters, for they heap layers on themselves and engage in deception of one kind or another.

You can be sure that in a fiction story there is one or more character who dissembles. Rare the one who does not.

What are the characters trying to do? They are trying to present an image of what they want to be or believe they should be but don't think they are or can be.

Wherein would hang the tale if honesty were supreme? At the least, it would be quite a different story, and conflict would be less. Everything would be simpler. None of the complications of ordinary fiction.

A lot of Human effort ordinarily goes into pretense, unnecessary, self-defeating pretense. There are better things you could be doing.

It is a wonderful talent to be honest, and a talent that anyone can develop.

If there were no need to impress, would there be subterfuge?

Wouldn't you impress if you didn't try to fool anyone? Begin with yourself. Look yourself straight in the eye and begin to know truth.

Your heart sinks at the thought, because you think being honest with yourself means pointing out your defects, of which you think there are too many. Of course, you do think that, or else why would you want to impress anyone? All the while, the simple truth of you is wondrous enough to behold.

If you remove that one factor from your life — the need to impress — your life would change. It might take a different turn altogether.

You would breathe better. You would relax. Tension would flee. Indeed, what would there be to be tense about if you were just you? And instead of appraising yourself so constantly, you appreciated yourself instead?

Why not delight in yourself? You are this interesting character in a story who keeps learning many things and mostly forgetting them. Most characters are misinformed to one degree or another. Could that be you?

And you have also misinformed the world about you because you had misinformed yourself. You were playing a part and forgot that you are positively not any part you play. You cast yourself, buoyed by the world, as a certain character actor when you were already cast in a far greater part than any assumed on earth. Have you forgotten? I cast you in My image. This is good, and this is easy.

Roles can change, but what I made cannot. Gold may be painted over, scratched, but whatever it may look like, gold remains gold.

Be honest with yourself today. Take away all masks and disguises. Be that beautiful being that you are, just as you are, you, undisguised, you, revealed, you a beautiful being on earth, learning, once and for all, of what you are made and Who made you as a reflection and tribute to Himself.