Many psychologists will tell you that we spend our days wearing masks. As we move between and amongst a dizzying array of professional, collegial, fraternal, personal and intimate relationships, the self we present to others is only a shade or hue of the real underlying deal. In fact, the mask we wear when we are alone does not always reveal to ourselves the person we truly are.
I was thinking of this general concept of masks while listening to a radio advertisement yesterday. Up in Aberdeen, members of the public are urged to purchase tickets to a one night extravaganza featuring an Elvis Presley impersonator. Listening to a clip of this man singing, I must admit he sounded eerily like the king himself!
What would it be like spending your adult life living as someone else? The best of these kinds of impersonators study every mannerism, peccadillo, and inflection of speech of the personality they have chosen to assume. They study the person's history forward and backward. They memorize the person's most famous interviews and reflections. For some of these impersonators, they BECOME the individual they impersonate and, in the process, lose a bit of themselves.
It's often difficult wading through the various masks we each wear in our lives. In order to find the genuine person at the innermost core, it's like peeling away the skins of a humongous onion, every layer revealing yet another layer. But what of those whose layers are hidden by someone else's personality?
When the last layer finally is peeled away, do they find Joe Schmo or Elvis Presley?
I was thinking of this general concept of masks while listening to a radio advertisement yesterday. Up in Aberdeen, members of the public are urged to purchase tickets to a one night extravaganza featuring an Elvis Presley impersonator. Listening to a clip of this man singing, I must admit he sounded eerily like the king himself!
What would it be like spending your adult life living as someone else? The best of these kinds of impersonators study every mannerism, peccadillo, and inflection of speech of the personality they have chosen to assume. They study the person's history forward and backward. They memorize the person's most famous interviews and reflections. For some of these impersonators, they BECOME the individual they impersonate and, in the process, lose a bit of themselves.
It's often difficult wading through the various masks we each wear in our lives. In order to find the genuine person at the innermost core, it's like peeling away the skins of a humongous onion, every layer revealing yet another layer. But what of those whose layers are hidden by someone else's personality?
When the last layer finally is peeled away, do they find Joe Schmo or Elvis Presley?
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are unmoderated, so you can write whatever you want.