Don’t Be Fooled By Me

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acceptance, afraid, Charles C. Finn, compassion, courage, facade, Fear, hiding, hope, Hump Day Chronicles, kindness, love, mask, worth

Don’t be fooled by me. Don’t be fooled by the face I wear for I wear a mask, a thousand masks, masks that I’m afraid to take off, and none of them is me.

Pretending is an art that’s second nature with me, but don’t be fooled, for God’s sake don’t be fooled. I give you the impression that I’m secure, that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well as without, that confidence is my name and coolness my game, that the water’s calm and I’m in command and that I need no one, but don’t believe me. My surface may seem smooth but my surface is my mask, ever-varying and ever-concealing. Beneath lies no complacence. Beneath lies confusion, and fear, and aloneness. But I hide this. I don’t want anybody to know it. I panic at the thought of my weakness exposed. That’s why I frantically create a mask to hide behind, a nonchalant sophisticated facade, to help me pretend, to shield me from the glance that knows.

But such a glance is precisely my salvation, my only hope, and I know it. That is, if it’s followed by acceptance, if it’s followed by love. It’s the only thing that can liberate me from myself, from my own self-built prison walls, from the barriers I so painstakingly erect. It’s the only thing that will assure me of what I can’t assure myself, that I’m really worth something. But I don’t tell you this. I don’t dare to, I’m afraid to. I’m afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance, will not be followed by love. I’m afraid you’ll think less of me, that you’ll laugh, and your laugh would kill me. I’m afraid that deep-down I’m nothing and that you will see this and reject me.

So I play my game, my desperate pretending game, with a facade of assurance without and a trembling child within. So begins the glittering but empty parade of masks, and my life becomes a front. I idly chatter to you in the suave tones of surface talk. I tell you everything that’s really nothing, and nothing of what’s everything, of what’s crying within me. So when I’m going through my routine do not be fooled by what I’m saying. Please listen carefully and try to hear what I’m not saying, what I’d like to be able to say, what for survival I need to say, but what I can’t say.

I don’t like hiding. I don’t like playing superficial phony games. I want to stop playing them. I want to be genuine and spontaneous and me but you’ve got to help me. You’ve got to hold out your hand even when that’s the last thing I seem to want. Only you can wipe away from my eyes the blank stare of the breathing dead. Only you can call me into aliveness. Each time you’re kind, and gentle, and encouraging, each time you try to understand because you really care, my heart begins to grow wings– very small wings, very feeble wings, but wings!

With your power to touch me into feeling you can breathe life into me. I want you to know that. I want you to know how important you are to me, how you can be a creator–an honest-to-God creator– of the person that is me if you choose to. You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble, you alone can remove my mask, you alone can release me from my shadow-world of panic, from my lonely prison, if you choose to. Please choose to.

Do not pass me by. It will not be easy for you. A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls. The nearer you approach to me the blinder I may strike back. It’s irrational, but despite what the books say about man often I am irrational. I fight against the very thing I cry out for. But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls and in this lies my hope. Please try to beat down those walls with firm hands but with gentle hands for a child is very sensitive.

Who am I, you may wonder? I am someone you know very well. For I am every man you meet and I am every woman you meet.

~ Charles C. Finn September 1966

~ HUMP DAY CHRONICLES ~

How might we change the way we interact with each other if we thought these words to be true?

I came across this poem again after reading the words, “Let me die…” in my friend, Louise Gallagher’s touching post Stampede has come and gone. yahoo.

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I forgot to put my face on!

Tags

Clothing, Diana Schwenk, dream, facade, Jeans, suit

When I was in grade nine, my brother told me that when I got married the guy would be thinking, “Man she looks beautiful!” Sweet huh?

And then he added, “But he’ll take one look at you the next morning and run away screaming!”

Early Sunday morning, I woke up trying to remember the dream I just had before it slipped away as dreams usually do when you don’t give them a second thought.

I was in a pool hall leaning against the wall, pool cue in hand, waiting for my turn. Yes I’ve been known to play. And I was all decked out in a suit that I wear to work. There was a blond woman beside me, also dressed in her business clothes. I didn’t recognize her as someone I know, but she turned to me and said, “You sure aren’t the person you used to be,” as she waved her hand in front of me to indicate the clothes I was wearing. In a similar hand-sweeping motion in her direction I said, “You’re all dressed up too!” She nodded, “But I’m most comfortable in jeans, that’s when I feel the most like myself.”

I questioningly raised my eyebrow at the memory of the dream. I shook it off, got up and started my day.

After my morning ritual was done. I went out to pick up some items I needed. Part way through my morning I made a horrifying discovery.

I HAD FORGOTTEN TO PUT MY FACE ON!!

I wasn’t wearing a stitch of makeup! I ALWAYS at least apply mascara. My blond eyelashes make my eyes look small and frankly, in my humble opinion, I looked stoned without mascara.

OK, I told myself, there’s no need to panic. Hasn’t everyone so far responded to your friendly greetings and smile in kind? It’s no big deal. I mean really. Get a grip!

As my heart rate slowed to normal, I began thinking maybe I should make this a tradition. Maybe on Sundays, I’ll just take a break from make-up. Why not?

At this point my dream came back to me. Don’t get me wrong, I feel great in a power suit at work – it makes me feel professional – like I’m an expert or something. (Why doesn’t my knowledge on a subject do that?)

Anyway…before you start rolling your eyes or laughing, know that I’ve tested this ‘How you dress makes a difference’ theory out.

A few years back I set out to prove to a friend that people treat you according to how you dress.

I walked into a store wearing cut-off jeans and a tee-shirt and from the moment I stepped inside that store, its employees were watching me. When I looked in their direction some politely looked away. But others went so far as to pretend they were stocking shelves in the same aisle I just happened to be in.

A few days later I walked into the same store wearing a sharp, tailored suit, high-heeled shoes, and not a hair on my head was out of place. From the moment I stepped into the store, I received courteous nods and smiles. Employees rushed to see if they could help me find something – they were tripping over each other to make sure I had an enjoyable shopping experience.

That’s just the way it is. And just like any other person, I’ve adapted. I’ve figured out how to get what I need by the way I present myself. I’ve figured out the rules of the game, put on my game face and plotted out how I will win.

It may not be right but – that’s just the way it is…

…wait it isn’t right…and I wonder why I play along. I wonder why it matters whether we have make-up on or not. Or why the clothes we wear matter.

I also wonder if this goes further than just outward appearances. Do I say or do things, or alter my beliefs in any way just so that I’m heard? Do I put on a façade so I will be accepted and ‘fit in’? Am I just taking the easy way out so that I don’t have to work so hard to be taken seriously?

Maybe that dream I had Sunday morning was a message from my subconscious.

Because if I’m accepted based on how I’ve adapted to the world, isn’t that a bit like winning by cheating?

I’m not suggesting that we all start wearing sweat pants all the time and stop brushing our teeth or anything like that…

But I do think we should be true to who we are and just like people continued to engage with me sans mascara, I think they will be drawn to who we are when we are true to ourselves.

I don’t just want to be a reasonable facsimile of me.

Do you?

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• Expressing Your Identity With Clothes (cultivatingstyle.com)