The word person originates from the Etruscan word phersu meaning "mask" implying that a person is a masked human. At first the idea sounds bizarre. After all, a person is not a mask, a mask is a mask, a person is a person. But what is that? It does not make a subject any clearer to define it as itself. If you were to ask me what a stoic is, and I were to say, "A stoic is someone who is stoic" the concept could be no clearer. So if I were to ask you "what is a person" to say a person is a person is equally useless. So instead I am going to put aside the instruments of my common sense and imagine that a person is a mask. Now, what does that mean?
There are several definitions of the noun mask in the Webster's dictionary, the first being:
"a covering for all or part of the face, worn to conceal one's identity."
To conceal something is to hide it, and because of this i think conceal here is not the most accurate word. the ocean conceals sunken treasure, safe's conceal what they hold inside, but masks do more than this. Masks not only conceal, they disguise. To disguise is not only to keep something from sight, but to substitute it with something else. To present a strategically designed front to replace that which you hide. Now remembering that I am talking about the word "person," I ask myself: Is a person really a mask?
And the answer I get is yes. I believe that people without a doubt attempt to control their facial expressions, the air they give off, their actions, and words, in order to conceal certain thoughts, feelings, intent, and instead present strategically planned images of who they are. Is this not a mask?
When you see an old classmate who remembers you but who you have forgotten do you immediately admit to not knowing who they are? Or do you smile and talk ambiguously attempting to complete the interaction without letting it known that they were not as memorable to you. Or you may even covertly attempt to remember or discern their identity if you foresee repeated interaction in the near future.
When you play a game with your friends and a pretty girl/ handsome boy slips onto your radar do you play the same way? Or do you intensify your efforts, or perhaps you attempt to look less involved as if the game does not matter, yet at the same time still wielding a certain level of skill. Aloof, skilled, compassionate; goofy,carefree, unrestrained; dominate, focused, skilled; these are just some of the multitude of impressions you could wish to impose of the potential viewer.
My point is not which of these is the most frequent or natural human response, but that to attempt to impose some sort of an impression on those who we believe are watching us (even when we are not being watched) is, in my opinion, a natural human phenomena. The reason that I am convinced this is a biological phenomenon is that since hosting these ideas I have been actively attempting to not be a person, or in other words to not create masks depending on given situations. Much to my discouragement I have found that this is a incredibly hard if not impossible task. I encourage you to try it.
The example I will give happened about a month ago. was bowling with a group of male friends. Not too concerned with winning, I was causally playing (while at the same time still clearly attempting to convey to them through my implicit actions that I did not care who won or loss, especially since I was winning by a lot). About halfway through our time at the alley another group of young adults occupied the land immediately next to us. Without even thinking about it I was instantly aware of a young lady who I found to be incredibly attractive sitting in the group. Just as instantly I began to notice the evident change in my bowling. I danced to the lane, I told jokes much louder, I was adamant in encouraging my friends, in laughing when I failed, in being humble when I succeeded, all of this was things I had been doing the entire time, but the scale, frequency were greatly amplified. It took me about 7 minutes to fully realize the impact this young lady had on me. It was quite the shock seeing as I had been intentionally trying to control such a response.
You see originally I had thought that masks were intentional creations of people, and that it was not that we were persons, but that humans decided to be persons at some point. However, after this incident at the bowling alley I have come to believe that this is not entirely true. Some masks might be intentional, but I think the state of having masks is not. After all, are we not different people around our parents, friends, bosses, and lovers? This is because we are playing different roles (i.e wearing different masks) the role of child, friend, worker, and spouse/significant other. Is this wrong? I do not think so. The roles listed above have some fundamental differences all of which I have not contemplated enough to list here, but a seemingly evident one is the fact that the roles of child and work are traditionally devoid of influence from one's sexuality; whereas the role of love seems to be in large defined by one's sexuality. If there are fundamental differences in certain relationship dynamics (like the influence of the sexual drive) than it would make sense that humans must be persons to compartmentalize these faces of themselves.
So I am no longer trying to rid myself of the mask. My thinking at this point is that humans must also be persons (masked). That said, there are several new questions that spawn from this
-Is there an appropriate amount of masks, a point where one has too many mask, or too little. Or in other words, how many persons should one individual carry within them?
- If different relationships require different personas in what ways are human relationships graduated? What does this notion of a graduated humanity do to the idea of a universal rights/ ethics ?
- What is it mean to be a human, what does it mean to be a self, that is different from being a person?
I'll discuss this more in the near future, thanks for reading!
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