Volume III

Chapter IV
The Masks We Wear (仮面)
Kamen

Everyone has a version of themselves that they present to the world, How we act around friends, in front of higher authority, and when alone is all different. We call this a mask, We think there is a real version of ourselves that we are hiding behind these masks. However what if there is no real version?

Carl Jung spoke about the concept of the ‘persona’, or the side of you presented to society, Erving Goffman looked at how we create identities based on the roles we play, Perhaps the concepts make us consider how we can begin to believe that we are actually playing these roles, Over time we begin to believe we are confident as we are pretending to be or we stop being able to notice our doubts as we are constantly trying to keep them hidden.

We have no control over the family, culture, and expectations we were raised with while growing up, however we will ultimately play a part in keeping them alive, Although we understand why we become certain people due to social conditioning, does this mean we have no responsibility for our actions? Somewhere along the line we need to understand our influences and begin to question them.

Sometimes being genuine can cause issues within relationships as we reveal all our thoughts, Hiding certain truths can also help protect someone from getting hurt Unnecessarily. Sometimes we can become unhappy with who we are and yet we don’t want to change who we are as we have created a sense of belonging and security. We may be defending a version of ourselves we are not even sure how to live without

Perhaps the biggest illusion is believing we need to be genuine to find our true self, While we are influenced by what happens to us, we also decide who we want to become. Sometimes changing ourselves isn’t a betrayal of who we are, In truth we can be betraying ourselves by not changing.

Maybe we are not finding our true self or creating it freely, We are constantly creating it.

How can we be sure we have found our true self if we have spent our whole life becoming someone or something we aren't?