For a guy whose identity has remained unknown for nearly a year, I surely haven’t been blogging much about masks. Well, I haven’t been blogging much recently, period. With this post I’m addressing both gaps. This is not a return to a regular posting schedule, but then again I haven’t been really gone, as those of you who read my tweets and tumbls know. Now let’s cut the introduction and get to the point.
Have you ever thought that you wear a mask every day? Of course you have. Everybody has. And have you thought that you wear multiple masks every day? One at work, another at home, one more with friends, yet another one with strangers, and so on and so forth. Another familiar thought, isn’t it? So here comes the interesting part, has it occurred to you that by wearing some mask pretty much every minute of your life, you get used to wearing masks so much that you don’t know what it is like not to wear one? It’s like having a name — we all associate ourselves with one, yet this is only a label that helps others identify us. But even trying to imagine a life without a name is hard.
So what if you were to take these masks off one by one? First would go the most familiar ones, those we wear at work and with strangers. Then will come the turn of those that we don’t really count as masks… those that our families and friends see. Then the “I’m alone” mask would come off. Yes, it’s a mask too, since even alone we keep thinking thoughts we’re used to think, makes gestures we’re used to make and seek things we’re used to seek.
And the real question is, what would remain once there are no masks left to take off? What — or maybe who — is hiding behind them?
Unmaskd 