Apartment for Rent Prologue

Some people say, that the true human nature is only revealed when he or she is completely alone.

When n.o.body else sees you, what you do then is your real nature.

For example, an outstanding elementary school student, if he would secretly pile stones on top of the rails after school, then he is in fact a bad boy.

Another example, a gangster who often beats old people on the street, if he always remembers to buy a few meat buns for the homeless dogs, then he could be a good guy from heart.

I can’t agree.

If the true human nature can only exist when one is completely alone, then how could this version of one’s self, which is never be revealed to anyone, truly exist? Can your true self continue to wilfully exist as long as you agree?

Just a couple days ago, I thought one’s true self required other people’s approval.

There was a j.a.panese movie banned from Taiwan theatres called “Battle Royale”, basically the story is about a bunch third year middle-school kids from the same cla.s.s who then got trapped by some crazy military on an abandoned island. After giving them weapons, they were forced to kill each other till last man standing, as the last remaining survivor was allowed to leave the island. If not, once the three days limit was reached, every necklace armed with bombs pre-planted on them will all explode.

It was quite predictable, those supposedly good friends started killing each other, swords, guns, and it was a b.l.o.o.d.y mess. So I thought, anyone who watched till the end would agree that the true human nature only exists when people interact with each other. When someone is pointing a gun at your face, when you swing your sword at them, and when another guy rush out and throw a grenade at you, that is how they vigorously confirmed each other’s true human nature, the weakling who fell would never agree that the other person was a good guy.

In that moment, who would even care if you were the kindest person in private when you are the one standing right in front of me threatening my life.

Therefore, whether one’s true self truly exist or not when one is completely alone is irrelevant. What is important is that, everyone needs time to be alone, because being alone lets someone discharge those energies that he or she doesn’t want to discharge in front of the others, doesn’t matter good or bad. Because everyone has those moment when they don’t want others to partic.i.p.ate, like when they are pleasuring themselves with their mouths, or when they prostrate themselves in front of the toilet contemplating why they forgot to flush the toilet the day before, or when they are wearing their wives wardrobe and make-up singing Karaoke on the sofa etc. If you have to say that the private version of one’s self is their true self, I doubt anyone would agree.

Being alone is just a way to recharge, so that when they do interact with other people, they could perform better.

That is how I came to understand later, that one’s true self simply does not exist.

Depending on the interaction, one would show different version of one’s self, which is the reason why the human nature is so difficult to understand. Is human truly formed by something called truth? It not, it must be formed by different kind of truths, or perhaps, truth is just another illusion, everything is a lie.

Different type of person creates different type of truths…

Like in that movie “Battle Royal”, with that kind of cruel interaction, you can forget about any bright human nature, while if you look at the warm and fuzzy movie called “Pay it Forward”, it would be hard to imagine any bad guys running around in that film.

What a mess.

Sometimes even I can’t convince myself.

If one’s true self truly exist, it has to be as st.u.r.dy as iron, not something that would just change on a whim.

Hence we are all actors, constantly playing a different role, in each role we show a different version of ourselves, but if you have to say that one is real and the other is not, you would simply be dishonest and overly-idealistic, also pointless.

That is why I installed the peep-holes.