With age one usually holds a more restrained manner. And it works for professional environments and the like. It’s a sign of internal strength at times. But I’m here to say that constant rigidity, social convention, or other forms of restraint make your body dead and a slave to fear. We’re mistaking strength for misery, communcation for control, delusion for reality, smarts for cowardice.
You’d hoped that, just as one wisens up to the strengths of a mask, one would also wisen up about what’s lost with masks: an inability to unite with the moment physically. Yet people don’t realize this at all. They brace for impact everyday, yet when a moment of joy graces, you at best see a little hiccup of the body. They may scream with happiness internally, but it’s not quite the same as actually doing so. There’s no way you can remember the good times if there’s no physical indicator. The joy fades away, and negativity takes reign again. Of course people stay miserable.
But people double down with controlled communication. For bodily expression is needed to communicate, but instead learning how to use your body, people play a new game. We define the new social lifeless ‘norms’ that are useless for anything else other than stroking one’s sense of false reality. For example, the question “How are you?”
Oh how I hate this question. Even if a child clearly has slunk shoulders, a sniffle, etc, some people still somehow ask, “how are you?” because they can no longer see what’s in front of them, or more aptly refuse to see what is in front of them. I wouldn’t care so much about this if it wasn’t so perverted, if they just left the child alone. But no matter how upset the child is, the little needling question is about fulfilling norms, not actually comforting the child.
Even if you’re clearly upset, the function of the game is for YOU to ASSURE them that nothing is wrong, with the Holy Word that replaces a body, and build up THEIR internal reality, ignoring YOU. Your moment of weakness is exploited to further their perverted sense of the world. Words are what confirms their internal reality. Yes, sometimes slunk shoulders registers and results a, “what’s wrong?” - but it’s still a game, you’d never answer truthfully. For people get bothered if you fall out of line when you don’t follow the game! If you don’t assure them, you’re just a nuissance. You must stay in the expected ‘norms’. You must say “nothing is wrong, I’m fine!”
For a mask demands delightful appearances, not reality. A mask makes emotions something to manage, nothing more. They want to ‘control’ the reality by making it superficially spotless. This gives them a false sense of “everything’s right” by repeatedly ignoring reality and playing these games instead.
The mask makes delusions multiply, as a divorce of reality allows a new internal reality to take its place. For example, many delusionally think that their position in society matters more than their wellbeing. And the same people are afraid of being found out after cultivating such emptiness. So they become what their identity is. And think they lose everything if they lose their social identity… yet they’re already dead. Their deadness marches along with ‘the plan’ when there’s no such plan and most social norms are built out of nothing. You’re here, it’s now, and your body is all contorted, your expression is flat, and you’re going to seriously say you’re living proper, that at least you got some wealth and fame. Perfect practice for the coffin! DEAD!
DON’T DIE! SMILE! Raise your eyebrows! Wink! Laugh with your chest! Smirk! Did you know there’s a muscle in the back of your scalp? Exercise it! Stretch! Your body and how it is reflects your internal state, if you haven’t completely detached from reality, which is within the advanced circles of “maturity.”
It’s killing the spark inside to… to what, to be an instrument for someone else? What’s the point of that? You’re asking “how are you” and not wanting an honest answer because… you don’t even know yourself anymore? They call it maturity, but it’s cowardice. Because pretending something isn’t there isn’t that smart or mature at all. If maturity is defined to be a sign of development, then real maturity would be to fully process emotions and learn from them, not to shove them down, lock your scowl in, and hope for paradise. That’s the quickest ticket to hell.
So I’ll say it loud and clear: no one is being smart by permanently hiding emotions. It’s being a coward. It looks cool to you because you think you aren’t fazed, but you’re actually just killing your entire soul, your reason for existence, just to preserve a ‘sense of decorum’. What’s the point of living if you’re just a husk? To accomplish great things? You didn’t accomplish anything, because you don’t exist when you kill your soul. You just got open wounds in frostbite. Only by fully processing the emotions and solving them do you begin to live, do you begin to look cool. Because your heart is still beating inside, and now you choose where it beats, not just shutting it off entirely. The scars show strength, because the blood is still hot underneath, it’s fusing into a new person.
Yeah it’s a tough world, I’m well aware. There was plenty good reason to lock your heart up, depending on what you been through. It’s smart at times. But don’t let it be permanent. Don’t let the world win by locking you up forever. They win if you do. People think they’re rebelling by acting tough, by discarding all emotions, but they’re just falling in line. They lost. They become automata, waiting for the next instruction.