TODAYS ERIC BUTTERWORTH Masks We Wear and Meet We’re going to consider, what Emerson refers to as, Masks We Wear and Meet. Did you know that you often wear a mask, and that one of the problems of understanding other people is that they wear masks, too? In fiction, the writer may say of his villain, Under the mask of friendliness, he hid his evil plans. This kind of cover up or pretense may take on many forms—usually much more subtle, and quite unconscious. But, when I talk about the fact that we all wear a mask, I’m not saying that we’re masking evil plans, but that we’re masking our True Self—that, actually, the persona, or the outward personality, covers up what we really feel and what we think and what we really are. You see, the great difference between man and the animal world is that becoming a person is not a static thing, like a cub becoming a bear. With us, it is a continuing quest, an unfoldment, calling for practice and discipline and, what the philosopher may call, surmounting ourselves. Man is a civilized creature, or he has the potential for being [civilized]. And civilization has often come to mean the responsibility of putting on a façade, of wearing a mask under the guise of being normal or good or decent or socially acceptable. A child in a religious family is taught early in life that he must be good or he will be punished. So, he tends to wear the mask of goodness because this is the way to be accepted. It has nothing to do with his character, but it has everything to do with what impression he tries to make. On the other hand, he may occasionally put on a mask of crying to get attention. But, what may happen is that the child achieves a personality that masks his own Inner-Self, his individuality. Arthur Miller deals with this so effectively in Death of a Salesman, where Willie Loman is so concerned with being well-liked that he never really discovers who he is or how to be himself. So in time, a person may come to identify with the mask that he wears as being what he really is. He loses the awareness of his own identity. He may say, like Popeye, Well, I yam what I yam and that’s all I yam. But, it is not all he is. Behind the facade of the blustery Popeye is a Transcendent Self, with the capacity to grow, to be more, to do more. An individual may try to cover the person that he thinks he is, which he is convinced is not good enough. And so, he becomes fair game for Madison Avenue image-makers who lure him into buying the apparel and the baubles and the cars that will give him the look of success, the appearance of youthfulness or attractiveness, etc. In time, he becomes more concerned with his appearance, and with what people will think of him than with what may really be happening within him or to him. Of course, most of the masks that we wear are more subtle than this, so that we may not be aware, consciously, that we’re wearing masks at all. For instance, people may call you a very strong person, and you may see yourself as a strong person. No matter what occurs, you bear up under it stoically, as the British say, with a stiff upper lip—a tragedy or an injustice or a painful loss is met with calmness and strength. People say, Ah, he’s so strong. And perhaps you are strong. But, more than likely, you are acting strong because you’ve been conditioned to believe that Boys don’t cry, or that You must be brave, dear. It’s the religious way to act—all of which may ultimately mask an ocean of emotion. One may become extremely confused about himself. For instance, there may be moodiness or an emotional upset, and one may say, Well, I just wasn’t myself today. Okay, but who is this self? Who are you when you’re not yourself? Could it be that neither the upset one nor the calm and poised one is really you? We may reflect many selves. We may wear many masks in one day. We may be different to our family than to our boss, or to our employees. We may talk of being ill one day and well another day, of being sharp one day and dull and idiotic at another time. I heard someone in conversation the other day say, Oh, don’t mind me. This is one of my days to feel sorry for myself. There are times when we’re patient and loving and generous, other times when we are resistant and grumpy and irritable. We have times when we are reverent and sincere, and times when we act as if there were no God at all. Then, what are we saying? Only that we play many roles in life and wear many masks that become bandages over our eyes, (to use Emerson’s term). And, they keep us from rightly identifying ourselves and from effectively relating to other people and to life’s flowing circumstances. You see, we are dominated by everything with which we become identified; and we can master and direct and utilize everything from which we dis-identify ourselves. It is important to know that we sometimes do wear masks and, thus, be able to recognize them and to realize there is always an I—there is always a permanent Core-Reality within, which is the True Self. Then, we can say to ourselves, I really don’t have to be like this. I can choose not to be this way. I do, after all, have a choice. Then, we can realize that we are distinct from the masks we wear and the roles that we play, and we can know that the True Self is transcendent to all of this. When you feel hurt or confused or angry or afraid, you can know that you are not these feelings. You have these feelings. They are yours. But, you are you, and you don’t need to identify in this way. You can be you. Self-consciousness, by which I mean awareness of a Transcendent or Whole Self, is vital to every person. It means being aware of one’s self as a distinct individual. Now, suppose I’m jealous of someone. Jealousy is a strong feeling in consciousness. But, I must realize that I am not jealous. That’s not my name. It’s a mask I may be wearing…but it’s not me. I simply have some strong jealous feelings. But, I am not my feelings. I have feelings. This simple awareness can open the door to mastery, because then I discover that I don’t have to be jealous. I don’t have to have negative emotional feelings. I can control them. I can experience understanding and love and faith…if I really choose to do so. How very many problems come from fixed identification with roles. Consider, for instance, the mother. She is a good mother. She is a homemaker and a wife, and she plays the role beautifully. She is devoted and long-suffering and patient. But, oh my, when the children grow up and leave home, her life is shattered. For what is a mother without someone to mother? She doesn’t see herself as a person. She identifies with the mask of motherhood. So, the need is to dis-identify from the role of motherhood, so that she can know herself as a person, with a whole life to live. And then she is motherly because she wants to be. She can play the role of mother. She can be loving and understanding and patient. But, when the children are gone, she doesn’t lose everything because she knows, I am not a mother. I am assuming a role of motherhood, but I am a person. She always knows that she’s more than that which she does, and she can pick up the role and lay it aside. She’s a person, therefore she is very secure. This also helps to understand the situation when a businessman—who has been a successful, hardworking businessman, who has risen high and has gone to the top in his field and has made a lot of money—suddenly is retired from his business. Now, he has identified as a businessman. And, when he’s retired, he doesn’t have a job anymore. So, he’s not a businessman. He has no business, so he’s lost, he’s frustrated. And…if he’s not careful, he will very quickly deteriorate, and very soon experience death. This is sad. He needs to dis-identify, and to say, I am playing the role of a businessman. But, I am a person, and I am secure. I can pick it up or lay it aside. I can work hard when I’m at work, and I can play hard when I’m at play, because I am, after all, an individual with free choice. Now, we’re not making judgments about the masks we wear. There is a sense in which we always wear a mask of some kind. But there is always an inside to every outside. Personality may be a mask of the Inner-Self. But we always have some kind of personality, whether it is shallow or real. What we’re concerned with, is that each of us is a Whole-Self that cannot really be limited by, or to, the roles we play or the masks we wear. Just to realize that we’re wearing a mask is to be on the threshold of self-mastery. For, if I’m wearing a mask, the I that wears it can choose not to wear it or dis-identify from it—or, at least, to wear a different one. So, it’s not a matter of trying to achieve perfection, but only to realize personhood. Then, we can choose to be strong or weak. We can choose to be happy or sad. We can choose to be loving or angry. But, we can know it is our choice—know that we don’t have to react in anger or fear because of a situation, that things and people do not have the power to make us feel or think in any particular way. We can choose to think positively, or strongly, in the face of all conditions. To know this is to become an observer of our own consciousness. Most of the fears and the anxieties fade away like the fierce figures in a wax museum, which lose their aura of danger when the lights are turned on. I suppose, this may well be what Jesus meant when he said, Ye shall know the Truth and the Truth shall make you free (free to be yourself, free to be you!) [John 8:32] © Eric Butterworth
Posted on: Fri, 21 Nov 2014 05:00:42 +0000