Unmasking

Masks. It's not just superheroes who fashionably wear them to hide their alter egos, nor just an opera ghost to hide his badly disfigured face. Average people like you and me wear masks all the time--they may not physically cover our faces, but they certainly cover something that lies deep within all of us: our true nature. To borrow the musical lyrics of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera, we actively participate in a "masquerade/ paper faces on parade/ masquerade/ hide your face/ so the world will never find you." Our daily interactions (what we say and how we act) with people is often a glorified masquerade. We choose to hide because, like superheroes, we don't want people to know the "real" us. We choose to hide because, like the Phantom, we are afraid that if people get a glimpse of our disfigurement, they would hate, fear, and reject us. How can we ever be "real" to ourselves? We've imprisoned ourselves with masks.

In the 1843 book, Either/Or, Danish philosopher and theologian, Soren Kierkegaard, wrote:

Do you not know that there comes a midnight hour when every one has to throw off his mask?...In every man there is something which to a certain degree prevents him from becoming perfectly transparent to himself; and this may be the case in so high a degree, he may be so inexplicably woven into relationships of life which extend far beyond himself that he almost cannot reveal himself. But he who cannot reveal himself cannot love, and he who cannot love is the most unhappy man of all.

And when the masks have all been thrown off, what is left is authenticity and most importantly, vulnerability. It's a frightening thing to be vulnerable, to be exposed for what one truly is because in our society, it is seen as a weakness. But perhaps it can really be our strength because that level of transparency requires all the defenses that you've spent so long to built, to come crashing right back down. In obtaining genuine intimate relationships with people, perhaps vulnerability is the key. 

Exposing one's weaknesses? Who in their right mind would want to do such a thing? Maybe, just maybe it the sanest thing any person can do because to be true of yourself--to be true of your likes and dislikes, your strengths and weaknesses, your triumphs and struggles, your hopes and fears--all that is freeing. Jim Morrison of The Doors contemplated of such freedoms when he wrote:

The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can't be any large-scale revolution until there's a personal revolution, on an individual level. It's got to happen inside first. You can take away a man's political freedom and you won't hurt him--unless you take away his freedom to feel. That can destroy him. That kind of freedom can't be granted. Nobody can win it for you.

My mask is red. It is a mask symbolizing boldness and strength. It is the mask of confidence and toughness. I must now unmask myself. I must now write so that I can be free. I must write, so that I can understand my mortality. This is my identity revealed.

What kind of masks do you wear? Are you prepared to take them off?