In the poem, The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot wrote, “There will be time, there will be time to prepare a face to meet the faces that we meet.” I read the poem when I was in college, and throughout my life that particular line stuck with me.
It takes awhile to really get to know people, and even today, when I meet someone, I often wonder if I am meeting the person behind the mask. For 25 years, I observed a business associate who dramatically changed his persona depending upon the situation and with whom he was interacting. To this day, I don’t know if I ever really knew the man behind the faces he presented. I often wonder if somehow, somewhere, he lost his essence along the way.
I recently heard a lecture where the speaker emphasized the importance to, “Be yourself.” That, of course, can get a person into a lot of trouble. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said, “Know thyself? If I knew myself, I would run away.”
Children are experts at being themselves. A friend’s granddaughter recently learned the ditty, “In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” Being 6 years old, she didn’t know just how long ago that was, so she asked her grandparents, ”Were you guys alive back then?” Dr. Seuss would have approved when he advised, “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”
Being myself was never a terrible problem for me, but like everyone else there were times I had to present a different face to deal with difficult situations or difficult people. I’d have to tell myself, “Suck it up, and put on a nice face.” However, I never played the Let’s Pretend game so often that I lost myself in the process.
The famous actor, Gregory Peck was attending a party with his wife, when John Wayne approached them. After exchanging a few words, Wayne ambled away, and Gregory Peck turned to his wife and said, “He really believes he’s John Wayne.”
The Canadian essayist, Andre Berthiaume wrote, “We all wear masks, and the time comes, when we can’t remove them without removing some of our skin.”
I guess each of us needs to decide how much skin we can afford to lose.
Esther Blumenfeld (“ Let the world know you as you are, not as you think you should be”) Fanny Brice.