Growing Up Without Being Phony

It is impossible to grow up without being phony because phoniness is like a disease that spreads through the air that we will all eventually get at some point in our life. Even Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, who constantly criticizes phoniness, is a phony at several times in the novel. He says he can't stand movies because they are phony yet he goes to to the movies frequently. He tells Mrs. Morrow lies about her son just to amuse himself. He says that he can't stand being around Ackley but invites him to go to the movies with him (he's doing two phony things at once). No one will ever be able to go through life without being phony because being phony is a human instinct that we can never get rid of.