We are slaves to people’s validation, painfully waiting for someone to determine our worth. We deny who we are, shaping ourselves into the unachievable ideals that someone else has set for us. We refuse to believe that we’re good until someone else tells us so. You’re too stupid or too nerdy. Too solemn or too playful. Too fat or too thin. Your accent is too strong or too fake. Your clothes are too colourful or too dull. Your work is too derivate or too obscure. We waste all our energies on trying to convince someone else that we are important, that we are deserving of attention, consideration and, ultimately, love. And what are we, in the end? We are ghosts, blurred reflections of our past selves. Disfigured, scarred, amorphous beings who are too scared of being themselves, too reluctant to own their flaws, too weak to challenge the blindness of these vulgar misconceptions. We want to be part of the game, imploring to be chewed by a world that i