I met more masks than faces.
Quite often I had the impression that I came to know a person well enough. I thought I knew who she was, and that what she introduced me was real. I liked to think that the smile I receive is real, that the flowing tear is authentic and that what I am told is not a story, it is reality. Just as much I would have liked and been right. Unfortunately, too few times we had ... far too few.
The first time I discovered that people had masks, I did not believe. I did not want to believe, and I wanted with all my heart to be a dream. An ugly dream I was about to wake up. But I did not wake up ... I did not wake up because the men in front of me continued to fall their masks, one by one, mask after mask. I was shocked when the person in front of me fell off his mask and said he fell because it was not a choice but a mistake. He fell because that situation gave him a loud nudge.
A friend of mine told me that he would like our faces to look like our souls. I feared and shuddered, for I was already imagining how I walked among the monsters, between the deformed faces and the empty eyes. I met people who at first started impressing me. I was enchanted by what I am and what I am saying. That until the mask they wore disappeared, and I met the real face. At that moment, I wanted to run, to go as far as possible, because I refused to believe that a man could change that way. Perhaps I'm naive, I'm naive that I still believe there are authentic faces, virgin faces that no mask has ever been. Maybe…
And yet ... I do not know if I want no mask anymore. I'm afraid. I'm afraid of the world I could live in, when everyone would wear their own face, not a mask. Maybe it's better, maybe we have to enjoy the beautiful moments, whether they're fake or not, because we might be horrified by why it's hiding beyond the mask. Until now, I've found a man even more beautiful than before, when he put his mask down. And you know why? That's because, in general, people who have something to hide, people who are not sure what they are ... they wear masks. People clean and good intentions do not wear masks. No, those people are content with their faces. After all, we find out that at the end of our lives I met more masks than faces.
Sometimes the facade is self defence in a scary big world. Sometimes its being polite when one doesnt wish to be. Some people might not know themselves well enough to reveal themselves to others.
The true self is often revealed in a moment of crisis and/or when a fondation of trust is built.
Vulnerability is often scary for people.