Give a man a mask and he'll show his true self.
Give a man freedom to be his true self, he will go back to wearing a mask.
We judge others yet, we hate to be judged.
Maybe it's in the idea of being boxed in that gets to us, and so, we don the masks to protect our true selves.
Our naked selves.
And sadly, our best selves.
For years, I loved the masks I wore. I reveled in filling in roles I wouldn't otherwise have dreamt for me. They made me invincible, warding off the people who are truly out for what's behind these images. But, in hindsight, I could have also warded off the good ones.
I wouldn't know.
I would never want to know.
Instead, I ask myself why. Why are masks comfortable? Why are they seemingly indestructible? Don't I love the person I am underneath?
And in years of question, I only found myself narrowing those questions into these two concepts: I love myself enough to keep people from hurting me or I love people enough to keep me from hurting them.
When I was young, I love it when I please my parents. For one, I get a high from their praises and two, I totally forget what a dweeb I was whenever I reach their expectations for me. For years, my parents kept raising the bar higher, and in return, I would aim to hit that mark they've set for me. And boy, I didn't disappoint.
Every time, I would bring a medal and a story or two, about I did extraordinary academic things, they'd beam with pride. And whenever I do, I would always get what I wanted: approval of accomplishments I claimed.
But then, it didn't matter who I was doing the achievements for. All I know was I had to keep up with what I started, and that moving past that is out of the question.
Until I had to admit I could never keep up with it anymore.
There were things that happened, in between the quest for achievement, that I kept hidden from them. And when I slipped a notch, they kept up with me until I couldn't see the path where I was supposed to be going. It kept the quest for achieving more challenging. And when the time came I couldn't deal with them anymore, their words about me to family kept me from telling them the truth.
"We are proud of our daughter. There is nothing she couldn't do. She's tough, just like her parents."
Ever since then, tough became my mask.
I fell in love with being tough. Why wouldn't you when you find yourself being respected by your peers. They wouldn't take your lunch money anymore nor try to punch you when they want to. You simply call the shots about how you want to be treated, and that in itself was addicting. No one tries to manipulate you into doing things you don't want to do. They have to simply accept what you can offer them.
Because you know your self worth.
But nowadays, knowing your worth seems 'bullshit' to a lot of people. You're just plainly 'selfish', not knowing that building up your worth meant protecting your capacity to give yourself and your time, to the people you love the most.
But no one understands that.
Not unless, they have felt themselves how it is to toughen up, yet still feel vulnerable to everything else outside the shell you've created.
It's like you've had this plexi glass built around you. You can't feel anything, but you can obviously see what's hurting you.
And do you mind it? At first, no. But when your eyes see repeatedly the things that are hurting you, you start to think if you're actually sane for letting them do so.
And so, your tough becomes weak. And in your attempt to keep your core self protected, you build a rough second mask to conceal the barely strong inner child that resides inside you.
Because frankly, very few people appreciate what it is to have someone that openly says they're helpless, lost and in need or direction.
No one wants responsibility, other than their own selves.
Because the world is heavy, and the thing we have to learn is to carry our own weight.
I have yet to see somebody who has already done that himself.
