We are never really ourselves, in private or public. There are myriad perpetual masks donning our faces, our actions, our bodies, and our senses. We do not want to show the world the reality of our essence. This idea of the mysterious, the effervescent, the effusive, the unknowable is attractive to us, and is primarily based on our survival instinct. Excessive exposure attracts predators hence the need to conceal, to remain hidden, to be off the radar, to be obscure.
But, in this age, attacks from deadly predators jumping on us in the wilderness of the jungle, are not a serious probability. The brutal attempts on life by others are now replaced with veiled and covert slights, insults, and strikes. We face aggression from others in form of envy, jealousy, unnecessary competitiveness, violation of our personal rights, invasions of our private spaces. This onslaught is subtle but constant, and wears us down.
Our response to this invasive society is to go on 'show,' place a glass screen between the world at large and ourselves. We put on invisible armours to shield our feelings and present a person of strength; in control, and immune to all kinds of offences. Through life we learn to become 'another,' other than who we really are, for we feel safe in not revealing our inner realm of heart and mind to others, by doing this we keep secret our fears, our weaknesses, our vulnerability.
The less people know about us, the less they will be able to harm us. Is this belief based on truth? are we better off by shutting people out and encasing ourselves in protective covering, by creating distance, by not revealing what and when we feel the way we do?
To say that there are no dangers out there would be oversimplifying, but to be excessively on guard at all times lest we get hurt is being paranoid.
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