In one of his recent blog entries, my friend James writes about the movie Capote that we watched together (I was the friend to the North he refers to in is blog). I totally appreciated and agree with what he writes and his perspective on the movie. However, I came out with a different experience. In fact, that is what I love about film; they often prompt different lines of reflection in each person. Each person sees something unique – it touches each of us differently.

For me, the movie made me reflect on the inner turmoil we all have with what is right and wrong and how, to different degrees, we lie to ourselves and to others. Capote was no different. He struggled with being authentic between the two worlds he found himself in. To the murderers he was telling the story about and to the readers he was writing the story too. He was two different people and his struggle was not feeling like himself in either situation. His inauthenticity drove him to depression and feelings of guilt, sorrow, regret and anxiety.

His angst is representative in each of us. We all, to some degree, present ourselves and our agendas differently depending on our situations and audience. It is that angst and differentiation that I want to avoid and although it may not be the outright manipulative inauthenticity that Capote volitionally choose, perhaps it is subtle deceptions we each make, lying to ourselves and as a result others – dare I say, even God.