Masks

The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are.

You trade in your reality for a role.  You trade in your sense for an act.

You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask.

~ Jim Morrison

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I like Halloween well enough, I guess.  However, the idea of putting masks over the masks we wear with one another every day borders on the absurd.  Hiding the face that hides our true selves...  Just interesting.  There is something safe about disguise, I guess.  Walls.  Shelter.  Barriers.

When Erik was a little guy he was afraid of the people in masks who came to the door on Halloween.  My parents probably should have reinforced that.  How do you discern, as a toddler that someone wearing a mask of Frankenstein or Dracula or Oscar the Grouch is okay on October 31st but not okay in the middle of June.  Or that someone in a plain ski mask is scarier in a lot of ways than someone in witch makeup?

You know how some masks distort or limit your vision?  They also tend to limit our vision of ourselves.  I think we would be a healthier society if we gave each other the freedom to take off our masks and be our true selves.

I don't want to give people the freedom to take off their outfits / costumes, though.  Just the masks.  I don't need to see most people running around naked.  Or sitting around naked.  Or anything naked.