Man in the Mirror

Man in the mirror,

you give me nothing at all.

How many faces

do you hide with your smile?

What mask are you wearing now?

Who am I? I mean really, who am I? I look in the mirror and what do I see? Perusing photos of myself, whether taken recently or long past, the man before me eludes me. The outer features, the expressions, the outfit ... what do they signify, if anything at all? The instant after one smiling photograph was taken it's possible a sudden scowl appeared on my face. The moment I turn away from my reflection it might be laughing at me behind my back. In some photos, there's no question, my smile is as forced as a stubborn kidney stone. I kid you not, even my reflection is a mystery to me. At times, I've become so accustomed to this reflection that I no longer even see it. And then, when I least expect it, I see it with different eyes, and I stare at my image again, confounded.

Oscar Wilde said,

"Being normal is just a pose."

But then, isn't every face we show the world a pose of one kind or another? Heaven forbid, it may even be that the face(s) we reveal to ourselves in the privacy of our solitude are poses just the same, no different to the masks we don in polite society.

Granted, it is said that to see a man as he is, is to see the man when he believes nobody is watching. But personally, I’m not convinced. After all, can we really be so certain that this private face is anymore authentic than our public face(s)? Isn't it possible that these masks we unknowingly wear not only fool our fellow citizens but also fool ourselves?

Undoubtedly, whether we like it or not, our personalities shift like the tides, except these tides follow no discernible rhythm and aren't controlled by celestial bodies. As to the director of this curious cast of characters, who can say? Indeed, like actors in an interminable play, our masks are forever slipping and our roles forever changing. You might ask, is there any stability, anything reliable on which our personalities might stand? I cannot say. But I challenge you to maintain one mask indefinitely. Self-consciousness can only be maintained in brief spurts. Unconscious motives ultimately take back the reins again.

Needless to say, none of this is to claim that we are all cynical creatures consciously playing duplicitous roles (although, there are many out there who might). Rather, there are other forces, I believe, that are controlling, or at the least, influencing these shifting tides. One might even say that all humans are chameleons of a kind. (Unless one believes in the enlightenment of Zen masters or the authenticity of artists as exceptions to this rule). Our self-consciousness might try to paint a different face dependant upon a given situation. On occasion, we might try to control how we are perceived, such as in a job interview or while seducing a romantic interest. But for how long can we keep up the act? Surely keeping constant vigilance is an impossibility. One might concede that a person versed in silent meditation may develop this skill further than the average soul, but surely eternal vigilance remains illusive.

Yes, the unconscious invariably creeps back in again without our consent. The drives of the body and the reptilian brain sneaking back in through an unguarded cellar. You may even be a modern day Bodhidharma, capable of meditating in a cave for days, but I still doubt your ability to maintain a single face, a single role, or a single personality for any length of time.

One might argue that one should seek a certain naturalness in order to counteract such forces, and sure, this might lead to more authenticity. But is it a stable authenticity? Does it produce a single face or a single role? If anything, isn’t giving up your self-control simply succumbing to one's natural drives instead? Romanticise it all you want, but you surely run the risk of giving way to to the ignoble aspects of your self as well as the noble. Okay, the more natural among us may have less defined masks, but aren't their faces in a constant state of flux just like rest of us? Of course, the only certainty is change, and I believe this is true in regards to personality just as it is the flesh. And yet, why do I still sense a dark and mysterious substance behind it all on which these ever-changing rivers flow? Something stable. Something near immortal. And if this foundation eaists, what is this source of all personalities, all actions, all thoughts, feelings and sensations? Is it the real you? Yes, I ask, is there a real, unalterable YOU lurking behind all these surface changes? A silent, observant you, watching from the murky depths. Not an enlightened you, but an endarkened you. Something that can be followed but never caught, known but never grasped, sensed but never seen.

Heraclitus said you cannot step into the same river twice. Perhaps the same could be said in regards to one's identity too. No doubt, ever since humanity scurried across the savannah dodging hyenas and hunters, we have been defined in relation to our neighbours. Man and woman. Old or young. Warrior or hut-keeper. Witch doctor or witch. Father, mother, sister ...you name it. A thousand different roles, and thus, a conveyor belt of masks. We even make the mistake of limiting ourselves to these roles, as if by me being a writer, a man, a heterosexual, a brother, a son, a lover and even a friend, somehow defines me with any certainty. Ah, but if only it was as simple as pinning down our roles like butterflies on a cork-board. It's bad enough that we define others by their roles, pigeonholing them into our bland little categories, but it is surely a tragedy to limit oneself by such superficial standards. After all, there are a near infinite array of categories in which to cage oneself. And the more one tries to perform this feat, the more one recognises it's no better than trying to catch air inside a colander.

Man. Writer. Office Worker. Australian. Such arbitrary words. Mere labels without adhesive, they slide off us like water. Yes, these categories of ours are as meaningful as they are meaningless. After all, we're far more than bland answers on a bureaucratic form. Take myself for example. Middle-class. Caucasian. Bald. 180 centimetres. 75 kilograms. Dilettante. Single. Brother. Son. Uncle. Cousin. Colleague. And what? Need I continue? We know these labels are poor excuses for defining the indefinable, but still we resort to them like babies do a pacifier. Still we adopt our roles unwittingly. Playing to the public as we go about our day. Masking ourselves in favour of showing something more real, more honest, more substantial.

You may think it's only the false and insincere who alter their personalities to suit their audience, but I assure you, even the most selfless saint will have a well-worn cast of characters concealed within her habit that she may don as circumstance demands. I’m quite certain the face she wears when giving audience to the Pope differs to the one she wears when berating an underling for spilling the Holy Water. And yet, I wonder, do you doubt such claims? If so, then tell me, are you the same person when you stand before your mother as the one who lays down with a lover? Are you the same character cowering before a tyrant as the one who baby-talks to a child? How about your colleagues? Do they see the same face as your closest friends? Perhaps there's even a secret self you do not reveal to anybody ... the man dressing in women's underwear at night, the banker who always dreamed of being a ballet dancer. I'm sure you get the drift.

Granted, some take a more active role in sculpting their masks whereas most adopt them without much thought. But beneath this distinction, it's all one and the same. The same falsehood exists. The same superficiality rules. All these masks still do little to capture one's true identity. In fact, if you ask me, those who sculpt these masks as a contrivance are even more insincere than those who haven’t consciously created a so-called self to begin with. Performers for example, or those who wear a public face due to the requirements of their career. Politicians, actors and rock stars, for example. Have you ever seen a bigger bunch of phonies? Those pricks, they'll use everything in their arsenal to control the narrative and seduce their audience. Public relations managers, plastic surgeons, saccharine smiles, bullshit anecdotes, publicised charity, stylists, personal trainers ... the list goes on. And while most people might admit this is true in relation to politicians, many still admire the contrived images of the superstar, as if they were a rare breed who live life most authentically. Jesus, we fall for their public masks so much, we often feel as if we know them intimately. Speaking of them on a first-name basis. Discussing their private lives like we were flies on their bedroom walls. No surprise, that we're shocked to discover they've been caught drugging and raping people. Startled to discover when meeting them face-to-face that they're often just assholes and frauds.

It's interesting, even a friend weighed in on the subject after we discussed it earlier. He wrote: "There’s those who engineer their lives to a point where it’s the ultimate portrayal, or construction. Those people are usually pretty successful, whether it is sincere or not. Then there are those who do not portray anything, who are absolutely authentic, and perhaps this is the ideal because it’s an honest path ... Artists or at least successful ones, find away to synthesise all of this, and figure out exactly who they are, how they want to be perceived and what their message is going to be."

And while I might agree to a certain degree, I'm not entirely sold on the matter. "Absolutely authentic," he said, as if absolutes were possible, as if one can actually be authentic. But doesn't this just reek of romanticism? Okay, I suppose aiming for authenticity might be a worthwhile pursuit, but isn't it like hoping one might eventually reach the horizon? More to the point, can anybody—artist or not—really find a way to synthesise their many faces, really figure out exactly who they are? Knowing how you want to be perceived is one thing, but controlling how one is perceived is another. In fact, isn't authenticity lost the moment one wants to be perceived one way or another? If anything, not caring how one is perceived is surely the more authentic path.

Naturally, there's a danger in romanticising the artists as a special species, as a breed apart from the common man. The fact is, artists are mere mortals like the rest of us. They may move in more exclusive circles and seem to breathe a more rarified air, but they also move in social spaces and feel similar pressures from their allotted tribes. Many years ago, for example, when I dipped my toe into the art scene, I discovered even less authenticity there than I've witnessed while working in a printing factory. Posers, one and all. Affected in their mannerisms and speech. Everybody playing their part, speaking the same pompous codified dialects, listening to the same music, dressing in the same fashions. No, in my limited experience, the artist is more often than not, the poser par excellence. Avowed seekers after truth, but as fake as a counterfeit painting.

And yet, perhaps an artist's contrived personality is simply an art form in and of itself. No different to a painting, a script or a sculpture. In short, a playful act of artistic expression that deserves our acclaim rather than our contempt. One of my favourite writers, Yukio Mishima, immediately springs to mind. A man of so many faces, it's difficult to know where the truth leaves off and the fictions begin. Maybe each and every face he wore is real and it's when we combine these faces that we're closest to an all-encompassing truth. I suppose this is what my writer friend was speaking of when he discussed the "synthesis" successful artists achieve. And if there was ever an artist of many faces, it was surely Yukio Mishima. Perhaps it's no coincidence his debut novel was titled, "Confessions of a Mask."

Strangely, when confronted with these many faces of Yukio Mishima, they both obscure and reveal the man behind them. One can't help but question which is real, which a mere mask, which one a playful performance, and which a sincere expression of the man himself. Yukio Mishima, the sickly teenager. Mishima the conservative writer in a drab suit. Husband, father, cultural icon, model, literary prodigy, bodybuilder, samurai apologist, actor, and finally, a militia leader who headed a failed military coup punctuated by his ritual decapitation at the hands of his homosexual lover.

That’s right, if any artist contrived to create a complex public persona, it was Mishima. And yet, in the final analysis, the elements can't seem to be synthesised, or at least not on an intellectual level. And maybe that’s the point most worth noting. Maybe the flesh and substance of a man will never be grasped by the mind, but only experienced with the senses.

The many faces of Yukio Mishima

Either way, whether painter or plebeian, we’re all playing our roles, whether assigned us by society or assigned us by the self. Perhaps it cannot be avoided. Some argue that evolutionary forces play a part in it, and I suppose they have a point. Thousands of years of natural selection reinforcing the requirement for the tribe's acceptance. Naturally, it makes sense. Group harmony was, and to a certain extent, still is, crucial to one's survival. Find yourself turfed out of the tribe for some perceived faux pas you're liable to find yourself being munched on by by some hyenas or run through with the spears of a neighbouring tribe.

And of course, none of this is to say I am immune to these contrivances. No, I'm as guilty as the rest of you. All you need do is look at the clown mask I am wearing now as I write these very words. Oh, I might dream of sincerity and authenticity. Like Hemingway said, I wish I could write one honest sentence. But shit, haven't I already failed before I've even finished? The proof is right in front of you. Listen to this highfalutin tone I have adopted. Imagine I sat in front of you and spoke in such a manner. You'd think I was as arrogant as an aristocrat and as smug as a snob. And rightfully so, too. Reading this over now, even I cannot deny the false tone, in spite of all the efforts I might have made to communicate these ideas sincerely.

Who am I? I honestly have no idea anymore. Hell, on a certain level, the question itself is as ridiculous as asking after the meaning of life, or pondering god's existence. Even the name Joel conceals more than it can ever reveal. And if I renounced this name my parents gave me, choosing my own instead, it wouldn’t make a shred of difference. New name or not, I would still be no closer to capturing anything essential about my mysterious self.

Who am I, I asked. A stupid question, no doubt. This strange life, it’s difficult enough trying to get a handle on oneself, let alone another. Nay, knowing anybody in this world can oft-times seem impossible. Even friends and family are like strangers at times. Even the woman I loved for seven years had an affair with my own brother. Two people I had once trusted implicitly, shattering the images I had formed of them. The masks they wore in my company, obviously quite different to those they wore when they were together playing at adultery. And so it goes. We only know the face a person shows us. That's why we're so often surprised to see the same person in mixed company. Suddenly we see a different friend, a different mask, a person torn in multiple directions. It's like witnessing a split personality mid-deconstruction. Like seeing the same actor playing every single part in a play.

Ultimately, I suppose there are no answers to all these rhetorical questions.

And still, even after all this, the same words remain, a faint echo in my ears …

How many faces

do you hide with your smile?

What mask are you wearing now?