I am realizing that I (and likely everyone else in the world) have developed personas. A mask. Everyone is basically acting. And they have acted in their persona for so long that they believe that is who they are. Here is a beautiful story by Stephen Buhner on page 189 in his book “Becoming Vegetalista”:
Once upon a time, there was a raven. He was beautiful (as many ravens are) and never passed up an opportunity to look at his reflection if he chanced upon some still water in which he could do so. When he cleaned his feathers, he watched slyly to see if anyone was noticing how beautiful he was. And when he walked, he strutted proudly, cawing his proud call, daring the world to respond.
One day though, as he was surveying his territory, he heard a beautiful sound. He looked everywhere, trying to find its source and finally discovered a beautiful white dove sitting on a branch, singing its morning song. The raven cawed, then thought to himself, “My song doesn’t sound nearly as good as that dove’s.” He looked at the dove, then thought, “My coat of feathers is not nearly so fine. And look at the way that dove walks, so delicate and serene.” The raven did not like how this made him feel, so he decided to become a dove.
He was, after all, a very talented raven and thought this could not be so hard. So, he spent the next few years walking like a dove. He spent a lot of time, too, altering his voice so his song would be more beautiful, just like that dove’s. He even rolled in puddles of white clay so he would look more like a dove.
But one day, years later, as he was walking by his old puddle in the forest, he happened to look down. Unawares, he caught sight of a strange, bedraggled face in the water.
“Hmm,” he thought, “What is that?! What an ugly, unkempt thing it is.”
Then, in one of those odd flashes of recognition (the sort of thing that sooner or later happens to all of us), he realized it was himself.
As often happens in these kinds of stories, that very same dove just happened to be sitting on a nearby branch—and once more it began to sing. The raven looked up, stared awhile at the dove, then looked down at his reflection in the water. He listened for a moment to the dove singing, then squawked and compared the two sounds.
“All these years,” he thought, “and I still don’t look like a dove. All these years and I still don’t sound like a dove.”
This caused a great deal of depression, of course, as bad news about the self always does. His feathers drooped sadly, his walk was slow and forlorn, and all the sounds he made were full of grief. He took himself home, fell into his nest, and sank underneath the waters of sadness and depression. For days he lay there, immersed in a hollow, painful emptiness. He kept thinking about everything he’d done. He felt a fool and useless and grieved the years he had wasted trying to be something he was not—and all the time he would never regain because of it. Finally, after a very long while, despite it being a very difficult thing to do, he just accepted that he was not a very good dove. He accepted he would never be beautiful in that way. He accepted the hard truth that he had betrayed who he really was. He realized that what he was really supposed to be was a raven.
The only thing was… he couldn’t remember how a raven was supposed to be.
As soon as I read that story, I knew it was talking about me, for that is the problem with these kinds of stories—they can’t keep their opinions to themselves. They hold up a mirror, and the reflection it casts gets inside, keeps nagging about an important truth our soul needs us to hear. I couldn’t seem to escape what the story was telling me, and finally, in desperation, I turned inward and looked at myself and my life and realized I wasn’t looking too good either. I realized that it was true, I’d been trying to be something I was not, something my culture and parents had told me I was supposed to be. But unlike the raven, the problem was that not only did I not know how to be what I was before, I couldn’t even remember what that was…
I developed a particular persona in highschool to protect myself from getting picked on. There was an intention behind me being aggressive and reacting dramatically to any slight. The next year I realized I was too sharp and I softened my persona by adding humor and being a class-clown. Then I added a dash of intelligence after that.
I also remember in middle school other kids would ridicule a specific movie I liked. They ridiculed how I liked rasinettes. So learned to kept that to myself. Slowly little things like this form the outward persona.
As I am learning more about neuro divergence in my search to understand certain people in my life better. I have learned that much of the framework to understand ASD equally apply to people outside that population. While ASD people are known to “mask” who they are in order to fit in better in social situations, upon reflection, I believe most everyone modifies their natural leanings in order to fit in, be polite, make friends, or appease bosses.
And so too I have created a persona or mask. This probably began developing as early as 4 years old. A wise friend had a dream about me where I was at a worktable feverishly making something ugly and kept saying to myself “it’s what the client wants, it’s what the client wants”. Or in other words, it is what others want.
I am reminded of what my friend Adrian asked himself during a recent meditation retreat: “who am I?” No really… “who. am. I?”
Who am I beyond my name, profession, profile and even body? Beyond the ego? We are God.
I look at an obvious example of some “new age men” who wear flowing linen clothes, have a man-bun, can speak fluently about astrology crystals and tantra, goes to yoga, went to massage school and is well versed in new age topics. These men have an earnest interest in these things. There is indeed a part of them that resonates authentically with these interests and paths. However there are greater and more hidden parts of them that have adopted this persona in order to integrate, understand and pick up women. It is a form manipulation. The best manipulators believe their own delusions in that they forgot or have suppressed their actual motives despite those motives still being under the surface.
Children learn to manipulate their parents in expert and varied ways. The techniques that work on the particular personality of the parent are the techniques that the child will weave into their own developed persona. A parent who yields to a child’s whining, over reaction, anger, aloofness, appeasement, negotiation, or intimidation thereby gives the greenlight for the child to weave this into their own persona. Of course there are inherent temperaments, leanings, abilities and modeling that also come into play.
A child has needs. A persona develops to meet those needs. It is an act. It is a mask. Before long, the child believes this rouse.
Then who am I? Where and when can I glimpse through the cracks of the mask? Most carry their persona even when no one else is around. They have personally identified as the actor they portray.
Meditation gives us this glimpse. Space between thoughts. Existence without story or motive.
Trying to be the “best” or to win inherently means adoption of persona.
Shadow feelings contain truth, but they too can also have persuasive function.
Anger, hospitality, humility, compassion, happiness, lasciviousness, and sadness can also all have function towards getting what the persona wants. A person who self deprecates receives compliments. A person who is humble receives praise. A person who is angry is yielded to.
However, I reckon grief is perhaps the truest and most authentic of shadow feelings. Grief work and grief rituals can be deeply healing.
The best books do not editorialize or add subjective commentary. The best books are ones who explain the facts and let them speak for themselves. There is a writing exercise of explaining a scene where a man looks at a barn after his son died from war but to explain in it a way without using emotions or speaking directly to what happened.
And so too art without “bullshit narrative”. Art that expresses itself through process. To splash. To squash. To tilt. To balance. To age.
Observe our own function without judgment and story. The heart beats. We breath air. We touch. We see. We hear. We walk. We eat. We do. We be. We sleep.
Qi gong movements from center balance point.
White walls of mind. Humm of silence. Dreamless sleep. No separation between the raindrops and I. Nakedness without clothing and without shame. As a blindman. Existence without possessions. Intimacy without words. Invisible. Observation without judgement.
The music I play by myself, versus around others.
The words I write for myself, never to be read by others.
The Tao Te Ching beckons us to act without acting. Effortless action … what does that mean? It means to live life from the core and not the persona.
Move from titles to purpose.
Not “what do you do?” but “why are you here?”
Victor Frankl would begin sessions by asking “why don’t you kill youself?” This is a way to begin determining the meaning and purpose of life.
For some it is because they need to help others in their life.
For others it is because they have to see more of the world.
And others it is to create art, music, books, etc.
And others is because they love life.
