Who are we, behind our masks?. “Behind the Mask” was a required text on an introduction to modern psychology, when I went back to school in mid-life, to find the answers to questions that had followed me throughout my life. What’s it all about? And, why?
“Behind the Mask” – whatever happened to my very much underlined and highlighted copy? I kept it for many years. The title itself fascinated me, for it describes so perfectly, or seems to, to me, at least, the many roles we each play during our lifetime, and the seeming reality that so many people seem to forget to take their masks off when the work-day is over.
We are so very much more than the roles we play on the stage of life – the masks we wear, that Jung calls archetypes. At least he seems to place them back deeply in our minds, and not, as so many people I know, confuse them with the essence of their personality.
Skilled actors slip off their masks and return to whom they are, an individual living in a society of other individuals, with both similar and different temperaments, skills, and lifestyle choices, to everyone else.
Masks, or archetypes, serve a purpose, but they’re not real, and we are. Or, are we?
Simple Seekers 