The real me is a Joker in a poker game, constantly something else, never just a joker. With some friends I am one person, with others I'm someone else. I'm not the same person with my mom that I am with my dad. Every person makes me someone new.
I have 20 000 masks and choosing the right one is 2nd nature. I even have a mask for when I'm on my own, the mask of a philosopher, working out the meaning of life (not quite 42). with out my masks I am no-one; they are like a diamond, each mask representing different facets of my personality. You cant take facets away from a diamond, cut one off and you leave another.
My masks and I are inseparable, I am my masks and some of them I'd never masquerade in front of my friends or others. Billy Joel's "The Stranger" explains it perfectly: "Well, we all a face, that we hide away forever and we take them out and show ourselves when everyone has gone. Some are satin, some are steel, some are silk and some are leather. They're the faces of a stranger but we love to try them on... though we share so many secrets there are some we never tell...why were you so surprised that you never saw stranger? Did you ever let your lover see the stranger in yourself?"
Some masks will never be seen, even by me, as the right occasion will probably never present itself. Some masks are grotesque and deformed and others are creative and seamless. the latter are ones I'd prefer to have been seen the most by the time I meet my maker.
I don't believe I am the only con-artist, but that we all are deceiving everyone we know, hiding, changing. None of us ever really knows everything about anyone, even ourselves!
Yet we don't accept masks that others show us by mistake, we scorn them without thinking about the fact it is actually a privellage to have seen and learn't something new about someone. We could easily have worse masks, that we are too afraid to show for fear we may be scorned as we scorn.
Maybe we should all show some of our masks in the spirit of acceptance. Maybe then the world will be a beter place to live in. But alas we can't; there are always some who won't come to the party, afraid that their skeleton's are to decayed to show and don't realise we're all the same and just wont acceptance.
Although some can and do show their skeletons to others of like mind, and they are met with sympathy, if not empathy, instead of scorn. They are far happier than the poor souls who keep themselves to themselves and must trudge through through life with heavy burdens untill they die and Jesus releases them of their burdens.
