Have you worn other people’s faces?
Dear rebels,
One of my good friends is a poetry evangelist so I’ve really gotten into poetry in the last few years. Attended a lot of open mic poetry events, took a poetry class and make it a point to read a least two new poems a week. Yesterday, I stumbled on the fantastic Now I Become Myself by May Sarton. For those of you unfamiliar with it, let me share the first four lines:
Now I become myself. It’s taken
Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people’s faces,
The line “worn other people’s faces” stopped me in my dare-to-live-your-own-life tracks. I experienced a lot of difficulty fitting into the prevailing one-size-fits-all lifestyle because I didn’t feel comfortable wearing other folks’ faces. This ran counter to what societal elders had promised, “Put on these faces. They will make your life easier.” No matter how many times I covered my true face with a borrowed face, I never quite adjusted to the rigidity of the mask. Here are a few I wore with painful results:
The shopaholic face: buy tons of stuff you don’t need to make yourself feel better about living a meaningless life.
The martyr roommate face: never tell your roommate that s/he does things that bother you. Instead, spend thousands of dollars on therapy because you drove yourself crazy suppressing the anger.
The don’t stand up for yourself girlfriend face: let your boyfriend walk all over you because you’re afraid he’ll leave if you ask him to stop. (hard learned lesson: he’s more likely to leave if you don’t say anything.)
The be a “yes” woman employee face: similar to the girlfriend face — do everything your boss tells you to do, even if it’s counter-productive, because you’re afraid of being fired.
The I can’t do anything about the world’s problems face: spend most of your non-work time watching brain-numbing sitcoms instead of participating in your local community where you absolutely can make a difference.
The life’s a bitch and then you die face: Complain to anyone who’ll listen about your awful life instead of permanently ripping off generic, cop-out faces and living the life YOU want to live.
Fortunately, I hoarded all the bits and pieces of emotional strength the Universe sent whizzing my way. When I’d gathered enough, I collected the pile of counterfeit faces and heaved them into the dumpster.
The time had come to wear my own face — full time!
It felt good. It felt right. It felt powerful.
How about you? Did you ever wear someone’s face, even for a short time? Got a name for it? Would love to hear your experiences with phony face-wearing.
Muse thx, Giulietta
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Giulietta,
I love this — there are so many faces and personas we all wear without thinking, and I love how you’ve brought that to our attention.
A key one of mine has been the good girl face — trying to be, do, say, think, and feel the “right” things — and she slips back in at times when I’m not living courageously and truthfully enough to my own visions and dreams.
Interestingly, as a highly sensitive person who is so empathic to everyone around me, if I’m not paying attention I can fall into what I call “the Chameleon Conundrum” — matching what other people need and want, while forgetting myself.
There’s a fascinating tale in the book “The Martian Chronicles” by Ray Bradbury about a character who dies because he is so exhausted by his ability to literally take on the faces of the lost loved ones of the people around him — and they won’t let him stop.
I posted about this on my blog a while back, take a look here:
http://www.highlysensitivesouls.com/blog/?p=39
Thank you!
Hugs,
Jenna
Hi Jenna,
Yes, the “good girl” face. Great one. Reminds me of the Jennifer Anniston movie, “The Good Girl.” Also love how you’ve weaved “science fiction” into this post. Read your post and now want to read the Martian Chronicles! That story sounds amazing.
Yet another example of what science fiction can teach us about our non-fiction lives.
Thanks! Giulietta
An entertaining, insightful blog post. Loved the lines from May Sarton – a poet I will have to read.
I believe I may have been guilty of wearing other people’s faces, but usually to avoid conflict. On the whole, I prefer my own, especially now that Time has ripened it and left its tracks.
How about the “pretend face?” Some people go through life playing a part, often or always masking their true selves under a pretend face. It may be from a desire to fit in, say or do the right thing, or be part of an accepted community, workplace, or religion. It may be out of fear of exposing their true selves. Often, it gets to the point where to them, their “pretend” and “true” faces become indistinguishable.
I found that comment on The Martian Chronicles so interesting that I read the full blog. Ray Bradbury is a genius.
Beautiful post, G. And Jenna, I read yours too and loved it.
Like you said, G. we’re taught in our culture to wear masks. Real freedom comes when we drop the masks and start the search for our ‘authentic’ self, the one that doesn’t hide or make apologies, yet is liberated enough to treat everyone around us with respect for who they are (even if they still have a Noh-quality wardrobe of masks).
It can be a messy and sometimes painful process, that face-stripping, but as Neitzsche said, “No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” It may not be as popular to be real, but it’s nice to look in the mirror and not have to make excuses.
Thanks again, G.
Penelope,
Yes, most faces get “sold” to us as a way to avoid conflict, when in reality the worst thing we can do is avoid conflict.
Conflict arrives with a lot of negative baggage. Because we let things build up in our heads, by the time we get the courage to say something, we’ve worked ourselves up into a frenzy and the object of our angst doesn’t know what hit him or her.
If we spoke our peace as we went along, conflict might not even be conflict.
Michael,
Glad you read Jenna’s post. A good one. Great Neitzsche quote. Funny, how we’ll pay tons of money for a TV set but skip the privilege of owning ourselves because it’s too expensive a purchase. So true what you say about the self that doesn’t hide or make apologies yet treats others with respect. That’s one of the best definitions of “authentic” self I’ve heard.
Thanks! G.
Hi Giulietta, I think this is such an important post and you wrote it so effectively and succinctly. We hide, we escape, we pile on the layers because it’s at times so darn difficult not to have several lines of defense from the knocks and blows. But yes, ultimately, we hover behind these masks too long that we stop feeling the sunshine on our skin. (All kinds of mixed metaphors here today 😉
Hi Belinda,
A bouquet of metaphors! It’s so true about piling on the layers of defense. Gets so heavy sometimes it’s hard to stand up!
Thanks for the lovely comment! G.
[…] 10 Have you worn other people’s faces? by Giulietta […]
Hi Giulietta,
I just found your blog and the first post I saw happened to be the best I’ve seen for ages. Thanks for that!
It would be awesome if more people had the courage to stop wearing other people’s faces and start being themselves, and doing what they really love to do in their lives.
The superficial-materialistic-shopaholic face is my favorite on your list.
I would only add one face on the list (the one i wore for some time but finally got rid of) and that is the corporate slave -face.
I’ve been told all my life that going to school and getting a nice degree will get me a nice job so I can be happy, only to find out in my first job that the real happiness would be found when I retire.
Oh well, I decided to retire after two years to start my own business.
I am very willing to give up the consumerist mentality and stop buying useless stuff if I am that way able to spend my days doing what I love to do, instead of watching the life going by through the office windows.
🙂
Hey Petteri,
Corporate slave face! Another good one. Yeah, your realization that getting the job was not the end only a means to the end some 40 years down the road will resonate with a lot of folks held captive in cubicles.
Cubicles function as tiny little prison cells where you get furloughed at night. Kinda like veal-fattening bins!
When you think about it, the best years of our human lives play out tethered to a desk: school, then work. Only when we can barely walk in our 60’s/70’s, does the world say, “hey you’re free to go do what you want.”
Something’s wrong with this picture!
Thanks for stopping by. Giulietta
Oh wow, so many faces….and so little time, right? Wearing, perfecting, adjusting these faces takes a lot of freakin time. And there are more. I wore the Perfect Wife Face (then wondered why my Ex never wore his — turns out he didn’t have one), The Martyr Entrepreneur Face (where I never said no, failed to set proper boundaries and underpriced myself)and the all-around Ms. Nice Face (ugh).
Thanks for the link to this G!
xxoo Alli
Hi Alli,
You are so right about face adjustments taking up a lot of time. No wonder everyone’s so “busy.” The perfect wife face, now that’s a classic!
Hmmm. The constant adjustments make me think about mirrors. Do we look in the mirror so often because we need to make face adjustments or make sure they haven’t fallen off? I suppose if we were confident of our own faces, mirrors would not be that important. Appreciate the stop by! G.
I think this could be a book! Could you imagine the photos? I’ve definitely worn the “good girl” face and the “yes woman employee” face… but thank goodness I got over that! :)I’m pretty happy with my own face.
*Love* this post!! And the comments…
I actually love my face and have never been good at wearing any other face…As for masks though..I was raised on the plastic smile mask–the one I was told to wear in public even when everything *was not* all right… I was raised with the “low light” mask..the one that is so thick my inner light cannot shine through so I would be ‘regular’ and not different…
The masks were constraining in many ways, but it took me a while to release them..and now my face is out there revealing the Truths in my heart…
Hi Angie,
Great idea. The photos would be amazing. Even paintings. Almost like a gallery of facial costumes. Glad you’ve settled on your own face! It’s a good one.
Hey Joy,
Thanks! I too think the comments are fabulous.
Plastic smile mask — Yes, that one must have made a lot of money for its producer. I wonder why it’s important for us to pretend things are o.k. when they aren’t? That alone would seem to make whatever the problem is worse. And the “low light” mask. Another hot seller! Still on the market bringing in big bucks. Happy to hear you’ve released the masks. Feels so much better, doesn’t it?
Much thanks for participating. Really enjoyable. G.
I loved this post and was immediately reminded of my infamous voice teacher who would always say to me, “Courage Camille!” It takes courage to live authentically.
The more we trust and believe in ourselves, the fewer masks we need to hide behind.
As Judy Garland once said so beautifully, “Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.”
Hi Julie!
Fun quotes from your teacher and Miss Garland. For any of you Massachusetts singers out there, Julie’s my singing teacher. She helps us singers take off our masks so our emotions can shine through. Check out her link!
Giulietta
Wow – what a great way of looking at it and what a thoughtful post. I have worn a few faces – some of which I am not sure have names but they definitely have been worn. The hardest to wear was one given to me and yet worn by me – the one that rendered me invisible. I fought the wearing and wore it all the same until I could find the strength to throw it out. It is a liberating feeling to wear your own face.
Thanks for your thumbs up on the post.
The Invisible Face! I’m sure a lot of readers have worn that one too. Interesting how we seem them coming at us with the face and can’t seem to run away. Almost like we get hypnotized.
So many great faces mentioned in the comments. Love them all. Thx. G.
I like the fact you named the faces — it’s a fun way to switch masks by design or recognize when you’ve worn a mask that wasn’t truly you.
Hey J.D.,
Glad you noticed how fun it was to name the faces! Nothing like enjoying what you do in life … I agree that if we name our faces it’s easier to recognize when you’re wearing one that isn’t your own.
Thx. G.
Giulietta,
I love what you have shared. I believe we all have worn the faces of others. For a long time I wore the “I am a tough, heartless bastard face”, which meant that I would not let you in and that you could not get to me. Which means of course that I blocked out a lot of love and missed many opportunities. I used to brag that I was the worlds only living heart donor. Ha. Interesting how much I have grown and opened up. Thanks for this.
this is so great. i think i’ve worn all those faces and more. i’m inspired to dump all the effing masks. thanks my friend.
Giulietta: What a great post. I hadn’t really thought about it until I read your post and the description of each face, but it is so true that we put on different faces. I can’t even count the number of faces I went through, but I do agree with you … there is nothing better than just finding your own.
Mark,
It’s a gift to recognize these counterfeit faces so we can peel them off, isn’t it? I know you’ve removed your heartless one because I’ve been to your wonderful blog many times. It’s definitely “heartmore.”
Erikka, Now there’s a new biz for the alleged recession — a mask dumping facility. We don’t need to recycle them for future mask use, just melt them down to use as fuel for our autos. Here’s to your own fab face!
Sibyl, Glad you related to the post. I’m with you that most of us go through a number of faces until we discover our own. Part of the life journey, no?
Much thanks for commenting!
Giulietta