“This is no time for wearing the shallow mask of manners! When I see a spade I call it a spade. “
- Cecily Cardew (Importance of Being Ernest)
As we go throughout the day an interesting phenomena occurs multiple times, of which we might be entirely unconscious of. The phenomena I am talking about is called adaptation, or Social Competence. We act as chameleons changing our verbal life, our physicalization, our mood and anything that could fit under the umbrella of our behavior to “fit in” with accepted social expectations of any given situation. Some people admittedly are more aware of social cues and choose to adapt more than others based on many differing objectives. One might adapt to be more polite in a setting where he or she is being interviewed for a possible job position, and the same person might curse and use slang in a lax social environment amongst their close friends. Some people might call people with high Social Competence “two-faced” , but the reality is that most people have a degree of Social Competence; you could fall anywhere on the spectrum. When does a person change from simply adapting to a situation to wearing a mask? My answer to this question is this: when that person begins to change so much for a situation that their core values are being compromised for the sake of the situation. Now this is not a clear definition, and one might say that anytime someone must change their views they are putting on a mask. I would have to disagree. I think that people have a set of core values. These are the values that are very difficult to change. These are the values that you hold as true and moral in any situation, you feel passionately about them and these core values make up who you are. For example, a core value you could have is “family first”. Even if you are at work where you have to behave professionally, if a member of your family calls you in need because your value is “family first” you will do everything you can, perhaps take the rest of the day off and get a co-worker to cover your shift while to attend to this family matter. I think that having a Social Competence is important and necessary to make our society function. I do not believe that masks are. Masks to me are the ugly side of Social Competence. They are destructive and time-consuming. A mask forces the wearer to hide and thus shame is accumulated if the mask is broken. How can we fix this? How does one know if they are hiding behind a mask? I think the start to that question lies within your own judgement. Once you start to feel the agony and shame and you realize that your mask is a crutch, that you are constantly putting energy into something that hides who you are, you know that you have crossed the line from politeness to being fake. Once a mask is broken the wearer is forced to take one of two options: 1) pretend that the incident did not occur and go on wearing an even thicker mask, or 2) accept the fact the mask was broken, pick up the pieces, reevaluate the you under the mask and move onwards. The things about masks is that a mask is a facade. It is not real and it won’t and cannot last forever. Sooner or later you have to face the person behind the mask and discover who they really are and what they sand for. Embracing that person is scary and at first can seem rather painful, but once you stop pretending and start taking off the mask you being the journey to a healthy and fulfilling life.
