The Power of Masks

Jack Long
ULLC 100
Dr. Kip Redick

The Power of Masks

What I have learned previously about masks during class discussion is that masks have the power to conceal and reveal. Lane states “one of the deepest impulses of the spirit is to find the mask that invests with power and life.” I thought very long and hard about the meaning of this quote and how it relates to the individual.
We all are guilty of “putting on a face” at some point of another and I pondered about why we do this. We mask out emotions to conceal how we truly feel. For whatever personal reasons, we don’t want others to see our true selves. This is normal behavior because we are all guilty of this act, I think this is because if everyone revel what they truly felt the world would be a much more chaotic place. In any relationship there must be considerable give and take for a healthy balanced relation with anybody. Maybe in hiding some of our emotion it is our sense of taking. We pick and choose our battles and in a sense brush off lesser conflict at an attempt of peace. In some cases we reveal that there is inner conflict by the mask we present. I thought that this was interesting and I would be interested in pursuing it further in my studies.