Stranger in Me

Reyam Karim

Professor Mc Guire, M

Com-101-024: Composition I

28 January 2020

The Mask Does The Task

Around people, it’s hard to differentiate whether one is facing that person or their mask. One might be masking their true personality, how they truly feel, what they truly hate or like, or it might even be to lie to oneself. To a lot of people, it’s not a matter of simply putting on a mask for a show, it’s more of a daily thing that’s a part of their life and sadly... A must. To many, including myself, masks solve many problems. One problem is how the world views and judges people so by wearing a mask one gets to decide how the world views them. Therefore one can show themselves to the world in the way they want to be recognized and seen as. Hiding behind a mask just lets you deal with one less problem, relationships. nowadays, bonds built on trust are hard to find and it’s just more of a bother than keeping it to oneself. trusting others does more harm than good.

The way one presents themselves to the world is the way the world perceives them. Knowing that’s how the world works, I tend to wear a kind of mask, that I’m not necessarily proud of, in certain settings, such as first time meetings, interviews, and live television. The reason for that is because, in those kinds of settings, the people around you are so focused on everything you do and say that it kind of makes me feel the need to wear the “perfect mask”, especially because after that interaction they picture that state of yours in their brain and save you as that. Therefore, to me, wearing the “perfect mask” is necessary during those settings. It’s better to understand how I feel and what I mean when it comes to selfies. Why do people, including myself, have to get that smiley, edited, and perfect angle photograph of ourselves? I do it because I don’t want people to know my weaknesses or the times that I’m down which ends up in me taking the “flawless” selfie. Sontag mentioned something similar to how I feel in her essay: In Plato’s Cave: “To suffer is one thing; another thing is living with the photographed images of suffering” (20). Sontag was talking about how there are some photographs that shouldn't be seen because it breaks one down, changes them, and suffer. Sontag was referring to The Vietnam war. But looking at that statement alone I half agree with Sontag’s statement. I don’t want the world to have a photograph of me suffering. I just want the world to see my “good side” but not anything beyond that. Like I mentioned before, I half agree with Sontag’s statement since I do actually want to live with some photographs of me “suffering” or going through a hard time. In another statement, Sontag says: “It is a nostalgic time right now, and photography actively promotes nostalgia” (15). Photos do make me nostalgic. I love having photos of me simply living my life whether it be doing something I love or hate, having a bad or good day, or even just sitting on my couch. I love to look back at my photos because it either reminds of how blessed I was back then or how blessed I am at the moment to have overcome that boulder. That’s why I love having more “free-ish” pictures but I don’t want to share them with the world. Some people might argue that it’s okay to show your weaknesses to others since no one is perfect and everyone has some type of flaw or weakness. It is true that no one is perfect but why do you need someone else to know your weakness? There isn’t a strong reason for me to just simply share my weaknesses with everyone. The weaknesses I'm talking about are the weaknesses that all of us develop individually which makes us have different weaknesses. For example, my weaknesses are not being able to take a joke, being sensitive when there’s nothing to be sensitive about, being too blunt, and just many others things that I wouldn't want people to know about me because it feels like "letting my guard down" have Each person should just take care of themselves and their flaws. Another reason is that you don’t always know what that person might do with your weaknesses if they end up knowing it. No one can tell good people from bad people apart so it’s kind of risky to give that kind of information to others. People would definitely not think that I think this way base on what I show the, but isn’t life easier and more simple this way? You’re basically showing your other self to others that you created. Isn’t that still somewhat a part of you?. These thoughts and ideas represent a huge part of me, wanting to live my life on my own without the interference of others, even in the most basic situations.

Trust in relationships is an issue many people have nowadays and it became more of a bother to get someone to trust you and comfort you than to just simply not let them in on whats going on. When I think about it, I might have developed this wall of "not trusting anybody" when my so-called friends had a party that I was not invited to, then one girl that I trusted was at the party, the girl called me and started gossiping about everyone in the party attempting to get me to gossip about them too. At the end of the call, she then told me that I was on speaker and everyone at the party heard me and expressed their hate towards me. That definitely developed a trusting issue when it comes to friends. This may have scared me a bit too much but any time I want to talk about my feelings to anyone about anything, I have this flashback of that day and what I felt during that time. I might be over-exaggerating but my mind can't seem to forget how I felt during that time and how much regret I had from talking about others that day. Every time I attempt to trust someone, that whole scene, during that time, takes over my mind and acts like a stop sign stopping me from moving forward. And after that, I feel down for the rest of the day. I also swore to myself that I would NEVER want to feel the way I did that day ever again, therefore, my best chances of accomplishing that is by not trusting a single soul. Dealing with all these feelings when coming to trust ANYBODY made me believe that it's better to assume that you can't trust a person instead of assuming you can. That's why I would call relationships a bother since I don't feel like I gain anything that benefits me from any relationship. in fact, any relationship would most likely harm me emotionally. The only thing that people gain from being around others is not being lonely, but, after I realized the true nature of relationships, from a couple of situations, I realized that being lonely isn't so bad when comparing it to allowing people into your life because being in any relationship, from family to friends, is just a risky bid to play which, would most likely, end up with me losing. Another example, that can prove how trusting is an issue is this; If I tell my close friends I was having a bad day but they saw the “smiley selfie” I posted that day then they would doubt how I truly felt since it didn’t “look like” I had a bad day in the selfie. Photographs always speak the truth or so that’s what most people believe. People need evidence of how you felt or what were you doing to believe you and that’s exactly what photographs provide in these kinds of situations. like Sontag said “Photograph furnish evidence. Something we hear about, but doubt, seems proven when we’re shown a photograph of it” (5). So if the photograph was contradicting what I said, like how the selfie didn’t show that I was having a bad day, then I’m lying since pictures are more trusted than people’s words nowadays. Without these “evidence” it quite hard for people to take your word on everything you say these days which I consider as a bother. Besides wanting to see evidence of something happening, they also want information which includes, who, when, where, how, etc. And of course, one small thing usually provides that kind of information. “Photographs are valued because they give information. They tell one what there is; they make an inventory.” (Sontag 22). It’s a bother to answer the questions they throw at you to get the information they want. It’s all usually in the pictures that you have to end up showing them anyway to believe you. I feel disgusted that I usually have to show a picture to prove all the information I just said. therefore it’s easier to wear a “happy mask” and post an ideal selfie because not many people would bother me when I’m feeling “happy” or at least portray it to look that way. Their interference feels more like adding another bother to my life. Their interference just adds on to my thoughts, worries, and the decisions that I make. For example, me worrying about what that person might do with my secrets, thinking about how to make that person happy during their hard times, and deciding what to do to make them happy or satisfied. I'm talking about relationships in general. One must think about others when it comes to maintaining a good relationship. It's like adding someone's life to yours and it could make your life slightly better or worse, therefore, I just want to stay alone in life and be left alone. I just want to live by myself through happy and sad times and hide behind a mask in pictures and in real life. That’s my ideal way of living and I do believe that my “real” self is exactly how I want it to be and my “fake” self, also known as my other-self. is also the way I want to be. It’s just a matter of when is it better to use each one. Being by myself I become, what people would call, my “real” self. Around anybody else, I would choose to be my “fake” self.

Dealing with relationships that will only add trouble to one’s life and dealing with this judgmental world can all be solved by simply putting on a mask around everybody. At the end of the day isn’t masking ourselves a part of us since we decided to put them and somewhat built it on our own?. People should just accept people and their masks as they want to be accepted because if people continue to point out who’s “fake” and making people feel horrible about themselves then where would people who don’t want to show themselves, because of reasons they have, and can’t even put on s a mask or their “fake” side go? Do they not have a place in this world?. Everyone ought to remember that each and every one of us is hiding under a mask in some way.