There is some utility to wearing a mask. For one thing, no one knows where they might be able to strike you for maximum effectiveness. Another useful reason for the mask could also be that the world would never see your scars. Why wouldn't you want the world to see your scars? Because scars mean you were once beaten; and if once, then you could be beaten again.
If I can hide my scars, then I don't have to worry about someone trying to strike at the same point or in the same way again. I want them to see me a certain way because I'm afraid – get this – of what they might think should they see me for who I really am.
But, here's the problem with that mindset: When I wear a mask every time someone sees me, eventually the dirt and filth of everyday life begins to weigh down that mask, and at the end of the day I'm all sweaty. The next day, I wake up, I may have washed my face – yes – but the mask is still dirty, and my face eventually bears the markings of neglect. I age fast and harshly. At 35, I might look 40. At 45 I might look 55. At 70, I might look 85.
Narcissism seems to do this to people. They seem to age faster and harsher than their counterparts. Why? Because they have held onto their mask for so long, that their bodies can no longer take the weight. Mind you I am using a lot of metaphorical language here to illustrate how the mask affects us, but the effect is certainly literal.
Carl Jung referred to what he called the shadow. It's an interesting analogy. When we look at ourselves, we see who we are. But when we dislike something about ourselves, instead of confronting and changing it, we hide it. As Jung would say, we repress it into our shadow. The more we dislike of ourselves, and the longer we go without confronting it, the denser the shadow gets. This dense shadow we carry around with us. We deny what we despise, and project it onto others. But we are the only ones that don't – choose to – see it. Jesus referred to the log in our own eye; everyone around us sees it clearly, almost better than what we want them to see. That's why we have to draw attention to what we want them to see, to distract them from what we really are. We know it's there. We know it's massive. We know it can be seen easier than we can be seen. But, we don't want it there, so we deny that it is there and we point at the greatest things we want people to see.
I want the world to see me as a high-value personality, and not my emotional wounds that I keep picking at every night about a late father who refused to give me his approval. So, I convince myself that you will never know. “I'm special,” I convince myself, and I tell you. “I am above the mediocre human. I am a very unique type of person, and I only associate with equally unique people.” I strive for you to see that I have this friend who is a politician, or that friend who is an astronaut. I need you to see that I am friends with this socialite and that celebrity. You will never see these friends because they only hang out with special people, but I need you to see that I have this calling on my life, so that is all I talk about, never producing any evidence of these relationships, but cultivating relationships with people who would never question my words. Why? Because I now need your approval. You become the stand-in for a father who died having never shown me that he respected me. I tell myself that I no longer need what I could never get, so I seek it elsewhere – in you.
But you are not blind. You are able to clearly see that I truly feel wretched on the inside because my father would never approve of me . . . and now he's gone. Now what? What do I do now? Do I continue to walk in the same feelings of inadequacy as I have thus far?
What would be the point?
If my father never gave me his approval, okay. Then maybe it's not his to give. Perhaps my father is not qualified to give or withhold approval. Perhaps my father is a mere man who also thought too highly of himself – because he, himself, had unaddressed feelings of inadequacy. So how does that affect me? It should not. In fact, now – as an adult – even though my father (currently living) will never give me his approval, I truly do not need it. Why? Because my identity is not rooted in his approval.
This is not a rebellion. No. There comes a point where to honor oneself and choose to be true to one's own values is a higher good than to remain in the mud wallowing in the sorrow laid upon him by an abusive or absent parent.
This is where I take my mask off. I don't need you to see me a certain way. If I don't have these relationships with these notable people, so what? Does that somehow make me less of a man? Does that change my values? Does that in any way alter the way I have entered and will later leave this world? Of course not. I am who I am, regardless of what I am; regardless of whether I know that celebrity, socialite, or astronaut, or I don't.
What does change, however, is whether or not I am worthy of any respect from others – but not in the way I think.
Suppose I (living in Houston) tell you that I have this relationship with the mayor of Dallas. I tell you of some conversation that I had with him in which he gave me some profound advice. The advice seems somewhat commensurate with something someone of his stature would say to an individual such as myself, and I'll even try to make it seem special by adding, “I'll never forget,” to the beginning of the story. But something of the quote that I give you seems a little off, somehow. Not sure how, but the tone sounds more like mine than someone else' – or even his. What I don't realize is that you know the mayor of Dallas. You've known him for several years, and even call him up after we have finished our conversation.
“Who? The BlackWolf? I have no earthly idea who that is.” Now what? Well, now my worthiness of respect has changed – but in the opposite manner in which I hoped. Now, not only am I unworthy of respect from you, but I am now ashamed of what I have done. Of course, I never admit to this shame. I just stuff it away and hide it behind continuous reiterations of the act of which I am ashamed. My hope is that it will eventually become normal to me; so normal that I no longer feel any form of shame. But that doesn't happen either. No, instead it becomes a part of my shadow, it becomes a piece of my mask, and before long that of which I am ashamed has become inseparable from my own opinion of my identity – and narcissism is born.
If I need you to see me a certain way, then I will never come fully into who I really am. As a result, I remain a fantasy not only to you, but to myself. An empty shell that, when I die, remains as hollow as an eggshell whose contents were meticulously removed by a skilled artist – who later only paints up the facade.
In my next post, I will demonstrate just how the mask strips power from us. Stay tuned, and stay thoughtful.
