Masking. The idea of wearing masks is as old as a human being can imagine. It is proved that the earliest use of them was for ceremonies, rituals and entertainment about 7000BC. Nowadays, the masks are the part of the culture known to everyone as ,,Halloween". Children, youngsters and even adults wear masks so as to hide their own identity to have fun, kill spare time and the most important - to be someone else.Â
Even after thousands of years, people are still wearing masks but not ones used for celebration. Emotional mask, the mask we hide behind lest experience fear, unpleasantness and pain. The reason why people wear such masks is that they are afraid of unveilng their true selves. Who does not want to be respected, admired, liked and loved? We put these masks on in order to create the perfect picture of ourselves in somebody's eyes. Therefore, we create them so as not to be rejected by love, friends and colleagues. There was my friend, whose name is not relevant here. He was always trying to impress everyone around, even people who admired him already. He was changing his self every time he talked to another person. He used to put different masks on his face, starting with funny and ending with the empathic one. Having observed him for a while, I did not recognise the same person I had met a long time ago.Â
Behind the masks, we've created illusions as if we ever cared, as if we loved, as if we ever wanted. But why? There is no simple answer. Desire might be one of the possibilities. We can change our behaviour, language and even mind to get what we want. While we meet a new person, we are constatantly focused on positive traits, freatures and pluses forgetting about minuses. However how intelligent our date is, how smart and bright... We can always create one of those masks to have the ideal, perfect and flawless image that will cover our true self behind them.
Never should we pretend to have the same values. Never should we pretend to be someone else when getting along. Never should we lie. Never should you tell anybody you love them after three days of knowing each other. Take the mask off as soon as you can. The sooner you do it, the better for you. It's exhausting to live an inauthentic life. You put on one mask, them put it off, later you put other two at the same time. Tiring... You forget who you are, have been, were.
