Masks
- Thread starter Nirvanadragones
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impressive
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ABSTRUSE said:
Me, too.
I'm beginning to believe that our fears define us more completely than our strengths.
rgraham666
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impressive said:
Quite agree with this one, as I allowed my fears to shape me for far too long.
G
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i am the mask i put on years ago.
its melted to me.
its melted to me.
rgraham666
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femininity said:
Been there. I pulled it off finally. It hurt, a lot. But it was so worth it.
CeriseNoire
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I recently let someone peek under the mask(s). He seemed to find what lay beneath rather ugly.
rgraham666
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CeriseNoire said:
His loss.
CeriseNoire
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rgraham666 said:
Thanks. It just makes it scary to try again.
rgraham666
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CeriseNoire said:
I know. *HUGS*
CeriseNoire
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Thank you both, Mismused and Rob. I appreciate the support. We're still working through things, so I'm hoping he can come to see there might be something beautiful under there.
CeriseNoire
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mismused said:
I did. In that moment, it felt great not to pretend or play a part. Just the fact that I even got comfortable enough to do it was rather freeing.
oggbashan
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Real masks versus behavioural masks
From an early age I have been interested in the way people, and particularly women, present their exterior to the world and how that can be dramatically changed.
I am aware of the changes people make in their behaviour in different situations, how one person can be a parent's son, a spouse's partner, a child's father, an employee, and so on, matching their behaviour to their environment.
Yet I find the sartorial changes more interesting:
A normal, reasonably fit man can dress as an athletic sportsman, a slob, a suited bureaucrat, a bridegroom, an army officer and appear to be what he seems unless he has distinctive physical characteristics such as a beard, visible tattoos or long hair. It takes a certain kind of chutzpah to dress up as a Lord Mayor or an Alderman and walk through the streets.
A woman can do so much more with cosmetics, underwear, wigs, hair extensions, hair colouring, coloured contact lenses and then clothing. My daughters aren't as good at being chameleons as some of their friends but the change from a rugby player to a bridesmaid is dramatic and it is difficult to believe that the bridesmaid COULD play rugby.
One of my girlfriends in the 1960s was a nurse. In her formal nurse uniform she was unapproachable. As a hippy flower-wearing girl at a rock concert she was amazing. I used to have photos of her as both. They are the same woman but it takes skill to detect that they are. (I returned her photos after we split when she became engaged to another. Some of the photos might have embarrassed her and her fiance. She returned mine. All we have are blurred group pictures. Imagination has to do the rest.)
Our local photographers offer makeover and photo sessions in conjunction with the local beauty salons. It is amazing what they can do with apparently plain people, without using airbrushing or camera trickery. They present a mask of the individual - the most attractive mask. Would I recognise the subject of the photo in the street? Maybe, sometimes.
When the behaviour changes to match the clothes then the difference between the assumed masks is wide. Just putting on the clothes is enough to trigger the behavioural change. If you know a local shop assistant to talk to, see what she is like when dressed up to go clubbing... Is she the same person who wished you "Have a nice day" a few hours before? She changed her personality when she shed her uniform, and changed it again when she put on her party clothes.
Og
From an early age I have been interested in the way people, and particularly women, present their exterior to the world and how that can be dramatically changed.
I am aware of the changes people make in their behaviour in different situations, how one person can be a parent's son, a spouse's partner, a child's father, an employee, and so on, matching their behaviour to their environment.
Yet I find the sartorial changes more interesting:
A normal, reasonably fit man can dress as an athletic sportsman, a slob, a suited bureaucrat, a bridegroom, an army officer and appear to be what he seems unless he has distinctive physical characteristics such as a beard, visible tattoos or long hair. It takes a certain kind of chutzpah to dress up as a Lord Mayor or an Alderman and walk through the streets.
A woman can do so much more with cosmetics, underwear, wigs, hair extensions, hair colouring, coloured contact lenses and then clothing. My daughters aren't as good at being chameleons as some of their friends but the change from a rugby player to a bridesmaid is dramatic and it is difficult to believe that the bridesmaid COULD play rugby.
One of my girlfriends in the 1960s was a nurse. In her formal nurse uniform she was unapproachable. As a hippy flower-wearing girl at a rock concert she was amazing. I used to have photos of her as both. They are the same woman but it takes skill to detect that they are. (I returned her photos after we split when she became engaged to another. Some of the photos might have embarrassed her and her fiance. She returned mine. All we have are blurred group pictures. Imagination has to do the rest.)
Our local photographers offer makeover and photo sessions in conjunction with the local beauty salons. It is amazing what they can do with apparently plain people, without using airbrushing or camera trickery. They present a mask of the individual - the most attractive mask. Would I recognise the subject of the photo in the street? Maybe, sometimes.
When the behaviour changes to match the clothes then the difference between the assumed masks is wide. Just putting on the clothes is enough to trigger the behavioural change. If you know a local shop assistant to talk to, see what she is like when dressed up to go clubbing... Is she the same person who wished you "Have a nice day" a few hours before? She changed her personality when she shed her uniform, and changed it again when she put on her party clothes.
Og
Salvor-Hardon
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Yet another reason I adore this place, such as it is. The most amazing and profound minds are here.
I'm having another cup of coffee while I go through my mask collection and take inventory.
I'm having another cup of coffee while I go through my mask collection and take inventory.
Salvor-Hardon
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A Sampling of my masks
I wear a rather non-descript mask, it neither makes a statement nor highlights a feature, but rather obscures the details, the distinctive points of who I am. I wear it because it still stings even after 24 years of seeing "that look" people give when I casually mention obscure classical pieces, or 15th century literature or I reveal that I possess within me ancient knowledge the rest of the world has forgotten. I would think I would be used to it by now but still there is that sting, that initial bite that reminds me I am not of this world.
I wear an angel mask, with polished halo and fluttering wings, to hide my inner darkness. My co-workers and can never know I watch them, imagining them tied to a table as I coax screams and whimpers from their lips. They would be horrified to hear how I have woven fantasies of their torment and seen their broken bodies in the theater of my mind, and the pleasure that I took from such revels was so sweet.
I wear a devil mask, a caricature of my sinful state with horns and a pitchfork, to hide the softness, the tenderness, the love that I feel and that makes me willing to go to great lengths, further than I should for those who I have taken into my heart. I do not hide it for being weakness, it is rather a great strength, but it makes people uncomfortable, or it gives the manipulative a place to use my goodness for their ill will.
I wear a superhero mask, trying to perform the miraculous so that I will be loved and welcomed, taken in as a champion rather than exiled as an oddity. I wear it to feel strong and invincible, yet even yesterday an elderly russian woman reduced the man behind the mask to tears when she said "you are solid, you are strong, you are golden".
I wear a clown's mask, wit and humor to disarm those around me. For as was once "if you can make them laugh, they have a hard time shooting you".
There is the mask that has no name, an abstract display of chaos and cacophony, garish clashing colors that swirl and swell, making neither recognizable shape nor pattern. I wear it when I look into the mirror, to see myself, not as I am, or as I was, but to remind myself I am indescribable, I am beyond words, I am different and strange and weird, and those that seek to put a label on me, or confine me to their boxes, will find a litter of stickers where I once stood, and the remains of broken boxes where I refused to be held in check.
I wear a rather non-descript mask, it neither makes a statement nor highlights a feature, but rather obscures the details, the distinctive points of who I am. I wear it because it still stings even after 24 years of seeing "that look" people give when I casually mention obscure classical pieces, or 15th century literature or I reveal that I possess within me ancient knowledge the rest of the world has forgotten. I would think I would be used to it by now but still there is that sting, that initial bite that reminds me I am not of this world.
I wear an angel mask, with polished halo and fluttering wings, to hide my inner darkness. My co-workers and can never know I watch them, imagining them tied to a table as I coax screams and whimpers from their lips. They would be horrified to hear how I have woven fantasies of their torment and seen their broken bodies in the theater of my mind, and the pleasure that I took from such revels was so sweet.
I wear a devil mask, a caricature of my sinful state with horns and a pitchfork, to hide the softness, the tenderness, the love that I feel and that makes me willing to go to great lengths, further than I should for those who I have taken into my heart. I do not hide it for being weakness, it is rather a great strength, but it makes people uncomfortable, or it gives the manipulative a place to use my goodness for their ill will.
I wear a superhero mask, trying to perform the miraculous so that I will be loved and welcomed, taken in as a champion rather than exiled as an oddity. I wear it to feel strong and invincible, yet even yesterday an elderly russian woman reduced the man behind the mask to tears when she said "you are solid, you are strong, you are golden".
I wear a clown's mask, wit and humor to disarm those around me. For as was once "if you can make them laugh, they have a hard time shooting you".
There is the mask that has no name, an abstract display of chaos and cacophony, garish clashing colors that swirl and swell, making neither recognizable shape nor pattern. I wear it when I look into the mirror, to see myself, not as I am, or as I was, but to remind myself I am indescribable, I am beyond words, I am different and strange and weird, and those that seek to put a label on me, or confine me to their boxes, will find a litter of stickers where I once stood, and the remains of broken boxes where I refused to be held in check.
rgraham666
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Oh yes. 'That look'. I know it well.
I no longer let it bother me though. I revel in it.
I no longer let it bother me though. I revel in it.
rgraham666
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I look at it the other way around.
I regard myself as firmly in this world.
It's the other people drifting off in la-la land, in my opinion.
That's why they give me 'the look'. For reminding them they live in a fantasy.
I regard myself as firmly in this world.
It's the other people drifting off in la-la land, in my opinion.
That's why they give me 'the look'. For reminding them they live in a fantasy.
Salvor-Hardon
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I guess one more mask I would have to add is a very normal looking person mask. Some reason, even as much as I despise it, I still want to fit in, to belong. That's why I like this board. You all are just as warped and strange and as I am, and you think I'm not warped enough 
Rob, I so owe you a few beers should you and I find ourselves in the same bar one day.
Rob, I so owe you a few beers should you and I find ourselves in the same bar one day.
ABSTRUSE
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I've been pondering this for days.
I don't really have a mask, I have a facade. A very well crafted, protective facade that I've lovingly constructed over many many years.
It was built mainly out of self preservation.
Its been only in recent years I've been able to dismantle parts of it, to go deeper into who I am and to shed some of the armor.
Its been a painful and sometimes liberating metamorphis at times.
I still have layers. If and when I choose to peel them away I will.
Discovering who you really are can be frightening sometimes, but it can also be healing if you really get down to finding out who you are.
I don't really have a mask, I have a facade. A very well crafted, protective facade that I've lovingly constructed over many many years.
It was built mainly out of self preservation.
Its been only in recent years I've been able to dismantle parts of it, to go deeper into who I am and to shed some of the armor.
Its been a painful and sometimes liberating metamorphis at times.
I still have layers. If and when I choose to peel them away I will.
Discovering who you really are can be frightening sometimes, but it can also be healing if you really get down to finding out who you are.
Salvor-Hardon
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Here's to healing.
rgraham666
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Onions have layers.
Thinking back on it, masks have played a major role in my writing.
My first story, Fatima, was about a young woman buried under a mask.
Discovery was about a man putting his mask aside.
And of course Georges, my vampire, wears a mask all the time in public. Has too. In my world, vampires that go out without their mask tend to die. People don't react well to something so obviously not of this world.
Thinking back on it, masks have played a major role in my writing.
My first story, Fatima, was about a young woman buried under a mask.
Discovery was about a man putting his mask aside.
And of course Georges, my vampire, wears a mask all the time in public. Has too. In my world, vampires that go out without their mask tend to die. People don't react well to something so obviously not of this world.
