Jaklynn Rivero
1101 TH 2:00
Essay 3
Hypocrites
I have a demon. My demon dwells inside of me. It abides in the deepest abysses of my soul and wonders the labyrinth of my mind. The beast has downright sheer control of me. It strips my heart and flesh to pieces but situates me on a towering pedestal above the world. I can feel it when it trails me with its morbid face, like the darkened concave of a cavern, as it scowls at me from within. It has extorted the actual life from my limbs; the beast has leisurely suppressed my breath away and mangled my image. I have become the demon. I perceive my spikes, my claws, and my teeth that clamp, as I desire to extinguish flesh and guzzle my own fulsome aspirations. The independence has been rushed out like a downpour from my body and my demon has taken me by storm. My reeking breath hangs like a thick fog after each false puff I take. I am the monster. I can modify my presence to be clever, dexterous, vain, and sophisticated, yet the innermost parts of my intellect shout against my actions. My heart even summons me and hollers, “This is not who you are!” My family and friends like me as the demon. They see me in my smug misconceptions. They differentiate me as the showoff of a competitor I long to be. They view me as the gifted demon that I have become. However, my family and friends consider that I truly am this demon. They can glint at me, witness my deformed self, and deem it to be natural, because their own demons blind them.
Demons are hypocrites. People become hypocrites by their demons. Demons conform and morph us to their wasteful, hypocritical ways, altering our thoughts and manipulating our minds.
If Nathaniel Hawthorne were to write about hypocrisy, all of his characters would have a scarlet “H” embellished on their bosom, for hypocrisy is not just a wicked sin; it’s a way of life. It is the repulsive demon that slinks and slithers up from the complexities of human immorality. Hypocrisy exerts a pitchfork to jab the fuming cinders of pride and hatred concealed in our hearts and repetitively trouble our lives as we obey to our evil alter egos and pursue what the world requires us to be.
The very spirit of our human nature, although influenced by outside forces, that ultimately stimulates hypocrisy is pride. The appearance that we bestow to others, is it phony? We are not entirely who our society and culture want us to be, do we adjust ourselves and change into the demon for the whole world? Our pride releases this cunning beast in order that we can disguise our problems from the whole world. Today, humanity looks like a 17th century masquerade. Every person has their own façades of who they crave to be, or perhaps whom they aspire others to imagine they are. We sway in the ballroom of superficiality and feast at the table of mediocrity just to be acknowledged. Our demons camouflage, reposition, hide as we endeavor to change ourselves to make us seem more personable than we actually are, because we would by no means want anyone to witness us at face value. We are the bloodsucking feeders of any civilization that crafts us look better. We are the demon that lounges inside. We mutilate, overthrow, and criticize anyone or anything that might pressure us look dreadful. We are altogether hypocrites.
I see hypocrites rule daily in my life, as I strive to take the weight off my feet on my towering throne and rule the world from what Michael de Montaigne would call a bogus “rump.” I am a treacherous demon. I am a superb beast that can modify my figure when required and salvage its pride with the alteration of its skin. When I am in a dilemma, my demon takes over. I then become the arrogant Pharisee or Sadducee of old. I can take a substandard test grade and transform it into a catastrophe, when, in reality, what does it concern? Or I force others to remain humble, yet I live to brag. I assert peace and justice, but revenge is so pleasant. When I am struggling with the fact that