One's body is a mask, one's mind is a mask, and one's persona is most definitely a mask.
Just what they mask is the real question; but all we ever get to know about anyone or anything is our interaction with those masks – ours and everyone else's.
And we're all wearing 'em!
And none of us can see through them for shit!
It is hard for anyone to even imagine wearing the mask of another, much less see the world in their way. While we can share experiences, we cannot share our stance in relation to new experiences, because past experiences have led us to take a different stance, and we're wearing a different mask.
I accidentally stumbled upon Leddit this morning, again reminding myself of why I prefer pseudonymous image boards. The masks on display there really stink! The whole "Protection of Persona" racket is beyond annoying too. It turns everyone into a pompous Trump-type egomaniacs, staying busy protecting their masked personas and playing patty-cake with other persona-protectors. Uggh! And most of 'em hate Trump too! And why? Because he acts just like they do, like a big baby who's got a stinky old persona to protect – a mask'''.
It's not like you're gonna get away with not wearing a mask now and again!
Johnny Neptune taught me that!
But no one needs to go Full Neptune when it comes to persona either. I mean, I've played up a few personas in my day, and I even had people call me by different names, but I never demanded my own mother call me by a name other than the one she gave me! But names are just names anyway. Masks, really. We all wear masks.
Happy Mother's Day!
I've had a tumultuous relationship with my own mother. My earliest memories are of her constantly telling and showing me just how much she hated me. It sort of colored everything I became. Thanks, mom. My relationships with everyone have been colored by that first relationship; especially my relationships with women, including my relationships with girlfriends and my own daughters. My hate runs deep. As in, I was told every single day, hundreds of times a day, how much I was hated, from the time I can remember, and I hated back. It is what I was taught. It was the only stance I was ever shown. Hate those who hate you. The physical abuse was nothing compared to the emotional hell, but I'm not here to whine – I'm here to bear witness to the fact that WE BECOME THAT WHICH WE HATE. I have also said mean things to my daughters. I have not been the best father, and I most certainly was not the best mother. I did not wear that mask well.
But I wore the fucking mask.
When my wife left me with two daughters under the age of 3, I was unaware that I would be wearing the mask of both Father & Mother from then on, and that we would never hear from her again. I was unaware of how alone I would be, with every societal stance set against me! Seriously. Try being a single white male raising children all by yourself, and see if the world does not ally against you! It was most certainly that way almost 2 decades ago. The courts, my own parents, the schools, CPS, blah blah – the world sucks! But I wore the mask of Motherhood, because no one else would, and my children deserved a mother, even if I sucked at being one. I focused on them. I raised them all by myself, with no help from anyone. I home schooled because the public school system sucks, duh! I dealt with my own extreme physical disabilities also, and survived off of the minimum of what disability provides, while spending all my time with my own children, raising them myself, instead of running off to get a McJob and pawning them off into government-run indoctrination camps designed to create useful idiots for an economy that no longer exists. I also get to enjoy a lifetime of others putting me down because they chose a different path. They think of me as a loser, but truly, I think the same of them. They lost out on time with their children. I lost out on money and respect. I never had any of either anyway.
Oh, I could keep wearing the mask of HATE!
It wears well, but is getting a little stinky and hard to breathe through at this point. I mean, bitches!, amirite? Women can be such a pain sometimes. My mom still pisses me off, my girlfriend pisses me off, and my teenage daughters still piss me off. Today, it kind of pisses me off that my ex-wife got away with never paying a penny in child-support all these years, because "Pussy-Pass", amirite? But I'll always be the one that is hated by my own children because I was there and for me, to get hated, it is merely enough for me to be there.
