Masking

Our lives are sometimes distorted by masks, either our own or those of others – likely some from both.  It is not always that we are wearing a mask to deceive.  Perhaps most times we are trying to alleviate tension, or add some dimension to the moment or thought.  We may not even know that we may be masking.  It is easy to recognize a real mask, common long centuries past to represent the character of a drama.  A lad using a female mask was seriously taken as female because of the mask.  The common practice created the concept that we, as human beings, may mask what we really are so to give the illusion as real of what we want to achieve or affect.  We can mask ourselves many ways.  A white lie is a mask, presumed to be a gracious word, in an attempt to cover some truth or feeling that would be negative either from the masking person or the one receiving the message – or both.  The point is, in masking there is some truth, or a presumed truth, that is withheld, covered by a false statement or allusion/illusion.  There are many ways to mask ourselves to others so to appear to dilute truth.  We can’t be sure how the ruse will turn out.

My wife had a relative, adopted in the family by an aunt and her husband, offering an excellent and loving home for him.  He grew up in common contact with other family children including cousins.  He became a handsome fellow, competent, married, well employed, and approaching retirement.  In some way in the retirement years he discovered that he had been adopted, but had not been informed.  It seemed to change him markedly.  He called my wife, asked if she knew that he had been adopted, and she admitted that she knew, but it was understood that the family wouldn’t discuss the matter in any way.  All had kept promise with the adoptive parents.  He was stern and angry that she had not told him what she knew of his heritage.  Other family members received similar response from him.  By this date the adoptive parents were deceased so we were spared their disappointment in his attitude about their decision.  Their love and care for him was now reduced.  He felt deceived.  The mask, meant to be gracious, became negative. The stories of the unhappy results for much masking behavior persuades me that there must be a better way to manage sensitive human factoring than we do.  This is even more exotic when persons take truth and believe or feel that it is masking rather than communicating factual, or what is believed to be factual, information or emotions.  We need to learn effectiveness in communicating truth, and when to share it.

What is the solution to the human matter?  We need first to address ourselves, and be less sensitive to offense.  Persons don’t commonly want to offend.  Most masking is an attempt to avoid offenses.  We need to take a more humble spirit so to understand that some experiences will be in Shakespeare’s tangled web, but not always meant to deceive.  We need to know considerably more than we do about how to use language, in the words we use, in the spirit in which they are used, in the use of questions, and even silence. In the course of the decades I have witnessed the decline in public education relative to language skills.  It is likely that some of the horror stories of murders in schools, restaurants, post offices, places of business – wherever there is a crowd has something to do with the poor communication between persons starting with parents and children and onward in family, school and even church situations.  A part of maturity is to detect the fragility of some people with whom we have to do, and find ways to be effective with them – perhaps to lift them out of the emotional holes so easy to dig, so difficult to exit.  Seeing ourselves as sensitive we ought to openly admit our feelings and find ways to toughen up a bit.  But, this does not take away the desire of some persons to fake their way along.  It offers them an image that is not their own, so they can blame any guilt on that illusion.  They are not like that, they say.  So to wear a mask of deception is an excuse not knowing how to present the best self, or unwillingness to act in appropriate ways.  We are, sometimes sensitive to nearly anything – a condition exacerbated when we are not at our best.  Until we can learn better than to improve our influence in the human condition we will not only have hurting people, but burdens of retaliations to be borne.  The affirmative people of the world ought to make some adaptations for those who find life’s journey problematic for them, falling into negatives.