A social condition

They called it a condition. He called it honesty. But sometimes it made him seem rude. He couldn’t tell the difference.

He was used to speaking his mind without camouflage or fake kindness. If he didn’t like something he would say it, if he disagreed with someone he would point it out. Simply said, he couldn’t feign politeness in a world filled with people wearing masks.

He wasn’t the one to hide; from anyone or anything. But that often got him into trouble. Because not everyone appreciated the sincerity in which his words were uttered.

His belief was that if people couldn’t handle the truth, they shouldn’t be doing or saying things that were contrary to it.

In fact, he was convinced, that if people followed the norms of proper social conduct, so many fake masks would not be necessary.

But that was simply his thoughts. He lacked tact but that did not make him any less of a person than anyone pretending to be his friend.

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The three faces

“There is a Japanese saying that every person has three faces. The first face is the one you show to the world. The one you pretend to be, you sometimes even force yourself to present to others. The second face is the one you show to your close friends and family. It’s that side of your personality you only allow those near and dear to you to see. The third face is the one you never show to anyone. It’s the secret thoughts and fears you only keep to yourself. But this is the truest reflection of who you are”.

Uncle Kim had spent many years in Japan. He had a completely different mentality and world outlook to everyone else.

He understood when his nephew was disappointed or tired or sad and knew how to distinguish between the times he needed support or simply to be left alone for a while.

People strive to show others they are OK, they are fighting through anything that is bothering them. We more often than not put on a show to deceive ourselves more than everyone else. We want to appear as perfect as we idealise everyone to be. Or as near to that as possible. Then we chose a circle of our closest people and let them in a little closer to our heart and mind. We share with them some of our own thoughts, dreams and anguishes. But there is always one part we only keep to ourselves. Those things we never tell because often we don’t want to hear them out loud. We don’t want to admit to thinking them.

The truest form of who we are is the only face we see. But isn’t that a shame that we constantly live with masks on? So no one really ever knows one another.

Forced smiles, fake laughs

Do you remember what the last thing you read today was? Or what you were most recently discussing? Do you even recall what the last song you were listening to was?

We are constantly bombarded with so much information, we don’t have time to process it all. We pass our days skimming through texts and articles and by the end, we’ve already forgotten what we were reading about.

The same goes for the discussions we have. We often nod, as if we are paying attention to what our interlocutor is going on about, or as if we even remember what we were even talking about to begin with. Our topics of conversation become superficial and insubstantial. They are interesting enough to keep our attention for a few seconds, and then that distraction kicks in again.

We lose interest too soon. Isn’t that a sign of a society in disintegration? Of a life that becomes so superfluous that it keeps requiring things to keep its adrenaline high?

Do you even remember the last time you really enjoyed something? The last time you literally laughed with your heart? When you got lost in the moment you were living, forgetting about everything else?

We live at a time when we are surrounded by forced smiles and fake laughs. We have become so accustomed of hitting the “like” button online, that this has become a measure of our popularity, as if this is the only thing that matters for our existence.

We live our lives behind a mask, or maybe behind an abundance of them. To the extent that we sometimes don’t remember what it was like to be without one. What it is like to be genuine, carefree, and real.

It’s easy to put on a mask. Taking it off is the hard part.