Masks

The fragrance wafting off the hot, oily street food, the stench of a gazillion people packed into one finitely-dimensioned piece of land, and the constant raucous of the looped MIDI version of a cliched Bollywood hit song made for a dizzying combination, bringing Shalini back to reality. For a brief moment, she surveyed the area around her, trying to drink in as much information as she could, and finally realized that she was, indeed, at a local fair with her son, Raju.

Tightening the grip on her ten-year old's hand, she expertly waded through the seemingly never-ending populous of chaos. Having visited all the shows and played all the attractive games, Raju was finally content and transformed himself from a bickering ball of unceasing want to a calm, composed and compliant little boy.

As the two reached the exit, the crowd thinned substantially. Shalini loosened her grip on Raju's hand and recited a little poem to herself, thanking the Lord for finally ending her misery. Alas, Raju's adrenaline-filled head wouldn't stop him from practically dragging her to the shops where neat-looking toys were hung for display. 

Whilst on his expedition to find the coolest toy in the whole fair, Raju stumbled upon a shop where all the superhero masks were put on display. Shalini was more than content following Raju's lead because he wasn't particularly in the mood for buying anything. One could even say that Raju had successfully inherited the stereotypic Indian mentality of 'window-shopping' at a ripe age.

Upon entering the shop and trying almost every mask on, Raju asked his mother a seemingly easy-to-answer question: "Mom, why does Spiderman wear a mask?" Shalini chuckled inwardly and gave him a curt reply: "It's because he's doing good things, son; but he doesn't want people knowing his identity." The ten-year old's brain craved more information, however, and thus he went on to ask his follow-up question: "Why are they selling Spiderman's mask here, then?"

Shalini grew a bit impatient with his silly questions and replied as promptly as she could: "That's so that kids like you can try and emulate the feeling of being...". Before Shalini could complete her sentence, however, the depth of his question hit her.

Knowing very well that answers to questions like these may stump her little Raju, she simply shrugged, faked a wry grin and said, "I really wish I had the answer to that, kiddo". Inwardly, however, Shalini was bursting with pride. "My boy has learned to ask the right questions", she said to herself, as they exited the shop hand-in-hand.

                                                                                              - AnOkayishGuy

Apologies for the long story. Did you like it? I believe that the initial part of the slide into philosophical topics like these should be well polished, for it wraps the context around the reader's head very well. That, and I wanted to evaluate my story writing prowess. Not bad, I'd reckon.

Masks have always been, and will always be one of the creepiest things ever invented. It's actually been proven scientifically that things that our brain cannot process as 'normal' are termed to be creepy (Here's a link to an excellent video from VSauce if you want to find out more about it). Why are masks creepy, then? Ambiguity. The main reason (again, Cognitive Dissonance!) for that could be because your brain sees all but a static expression on the face of an individual, and that freaks it out. The feeling of not knowing what expressions the person underneath the mask is really conveying is unsettling.

We're not here to talk about physical masks, though. We're talking about the everyday masks people wear to appear, well, sociable. A very well renowned Japanese quote states:

"There are three faces that you possess. The first face, you show to the world. The second face, you show to your closest friends and your family. The third face, however, is the face you never show anyone, for it is the truest reflection of who you are."

Cool quote, huh? I'd like to think the Japanese probably oversimplified it, though. 

*Bonus section!* One of the many reasons you see these kinds of quotes as edgy teenagers' Facebook and WhatsApp statuses is because of the simplicity of the quote. Quite often, we completely misrepresent the meaning of the quote and, thinking we relate to it, take it out of context. Take the story above as an example. How quickly would we have discarded Raju's question as 'being too straightforward'? We, as humans, perceive the surface of such questions very well, but fail to estimate the depth of them.

Whelp, I got a bit side-tracked there. Let's get back to the topic at hand.

The reason I think the Japanese oversimplified the aforementioned quote is because you don't have just one face you show to the world, but an uncountable number of faces, each tailored specifically for a certain person.

Come on, let's not lie to ourselves. We ALL wear masks. No, I never said I don't. We ALL do; the only difference is that I blatantly admit it. How many of us can relate to this?

We all crave to be socially accepted, don't we? We all want to be a part of the 'creamy layer' of society; you know, the 'elite' circle - those people who get 400 likes on their Instagram photo, those people who get seemingly unstoppable PMs every day, etc. etc. The reason why I brought up these quantitative measures is because these are the very parameters that define your social status nowadays, like it or not (pun intended, I guess?).

Coming back to our main highlight - Masks. Remember Shalini's answer to Raju's question?

"That's so that kids like you can try and emulate the feeling of being..."

The sentence may not have been completed, but the crux is right there for us to see. It's the word 'emulate'. When you don a mask, you slip into the character's personality. For a brief moment, you're him/her. Here's the question that bowls everyone, though - When you're emulating someone else, do you maintain a realization of who you really are? I know, I know, many of you must be feeling something along the lines of this right now:

Let's answer the question above with a VERY simple experiment. Ask any kid you're well acquainted with to wear his/her favorite superhero's mask. Let them get into character for a bit. After a little while, say, "Hey, you know, I think <insert superhero name here> is not even cool!" What do you think happens?

Exactly. The kid always removes the mask first and then looks at you angrily. What does that explain? Simple - When you're 'wearing a mask', you still have a piece of yourself inside you. When someone directly insults your 'masked' self, it's the real you who's affected, not the mask. In short, the mask becomes a part of you.

That made things a lot easier, didn't it? 

Let's ramp up the context to us adults. Old habits die hard, they say. Well, they're not wrong. Even as we grow up, the base concept of 'wearing masks' remains the same; it's just the masks themselves that change. Now, we're talking about masks that all look alike, and have no identification.

How many people will willingly accept the following fact?

We've designed a specific mask for every person we know, and every group we belong to.

Before you let loose your flurry of verbal abuses, let me explain. The above equation simply defines the total number of masks you have with you. "Okay, but where?" Let's assume a large haversack named "Le Bag of Masks" which acts as a repository for all your masks.

You'll also probably notice that 'person' and 'group' are different entities. Why so? Simply put, the person, as an individual, is completely different when compared to the same person in a specific group. Again, why? Because he/she is wearing a mask too! Do you get it? If not, ponder over this equation for a while. Don't worry, it'll sink in gradually.

As you've guessed, the number that the above equation churns out is quite large. You're now left with this huge haversack of masks that ALL look the same. Even worse, there is no way to tell which mask is which! What will happen when the number of masks keeps increasing until it finally hits the brim of the haversack?

Chaos.

There will come a time when the haversack will fill to its brim, and when that happens, you don't know which mask is the real you,

What do you do, then? Search all the masks in the haversack? Good luck with that. Since there is no way to tell the difference between two masks, there is absolutely no way to uncover the 'you' mask. In short, you lose yourself amongst your own selves.

And no, this isn't a tutorial, or a hack, or a step-by-step guide to 'find yourself'. This is just a post meant for realization. No, there's nothing you can do to reduce the number of masks in your haversack. No, you can't be 'yourself' with everyone. Accept this fact and live your life peacefully.

Funny, isn't it? The age old saying

"As you get older, you start to lose the concept of who you wanted to become, and start becoming someone you never wanted to become in the first place."

really makes sense now.

Till next time, then. Cheers!