Dateline:
Hall of Masks
Netherworld
Friday, May 23, 2003

We all have a face
that we hide away forever
and we take them out
and show ourselves
when everyone else is gone

Some are satin, some are steel,
some are silk, and some are leather
They're the faces of the stranger
but we love to try them on
Billy Joel, "The Stranger"

It all starts with Ora.

One of my lesser known talents is acting. There are various methods to acting, two of the more dominant in my mind are outside-in acting compared to inside-out. Outside-in acting is primarily taking your own experiences and using them to fuel the emotions of the character that you play. If you need to cry, you simply recall something sad that's happened in your life and the tears will fall. I tend to use Inside-out acting. That is, instead of using my outside experiences for the inside role, I internalize the character I am supposed to be playing and, in my mind, become it. Once you've got yourself convinced, everyone else is easy.

I use it a lot when it comes to my writing. I act out the parts that I am playing and putting myself in their position, which is largely what fuels my skill with characterization and, more specifically, dialogue. I've also lent my voice to four roles in No-Lyfe Productions and have participated in various other amateur productions, that's not precisely what I mean. Most of those roles are too superficial to go into that much depth over.

What I'm really referring to is self-directing. Acting out a role not necessarily of someone else, but of who I would like to be. We all do this as we grow up. We try on different personalities until, theoretically, we find one that fits. I was certainly no different as I went from a free-spirited kid to someone who strived to fit in to someone who really didn't care that much. I never really did the goth thing or the kikker one, but that probably had as much to do with my mother's thrift in clothe shopping as anything else.

What I'm talking is a conscious effort to be someone that I am not in order to better myself according to some standard or another. As my sixth grade science teacher used to say, "fake it till you feel it." That's precisely what I did and it all started with Ora.

Ora was the first girl that I ever loved for who she was, not who I imagined to be and definitely not by how she made me feel, because she made me feel like cow dung. She didn't try, mind you, but that was just the way that things were with the high school mentality and all. She was a late bloomer when it came to discovering boys and when we met, she didn't have realistic ideas as to what she really wanted and, perhaps as importantly, what was obtainable to her. As such, she tended to bypass the obtainable me for the unobtainable other.

It all came to a head on July 12, 1996, when after receiving information that she still loved me, I made a last-ditch attempt to wreste her away from her boyfriend. I failed and I don't know that either of us were ever the same again. For her part, she lost one of her best friends and most loyal stalwarts. She would come to realize her mistake a year later, but by then, I'd made my changes and I was not up for reopening the past.

The day after it all went down, when I woke up, I felt like I didn't have an identity anymore. It wasn't just because Ora rejected me, though that was certainly a part of it. If she didn't love me for who I was, I reasoned, then why would anyone. That's a thought that might have harmlessly passed by (all adolescents have that thought after their first heartbreak) were it not for everyone else. I hadn't realized how much my friendship with her benefitted me socially. When the crapola hit the fan, all of our mutual friends (which is to say most of mine) took her side. Even those that didn't no longer felt the need to be particularly nice to me, and during that long month, I realized that I wasn't as highly regarded as I had previously thought.

So I ended up laying low and just watching people. I took mental notes on what alienated people and how one could become highly regarded. I realized, with painfully clear vision, everything that I had done wrong. I knew it was time to change and that was when I first came here, to the Hall of Masks. It was all relatively benign at first. I needed to control my temper and smile more often to be highly regarded. I needed to learn to be more protective of my feelings. All good things. But once I slipped the steel mask on, everything changed.

I tend to use broad language, saying that I was being "something that I was not" but that isn't entirely true. The steel mask did not -- and could not -- create an entity from scratch. Rather, it brought out sides of me that had previously been hidden. Many of them were good, such as objective insights into the way that people work. It also suppressed some of my negative characteristics and thankfully my former spitfire temper never truly resurfaced. But there were key parts of me that the mask kept hidden. The steel mask's identity, which I call The Second (The First being my identity pre-mask), took on a life of its own.

Rather than simply making me a better person, it turned on the old parts of me that didn't fit. Like andogens to a rejected implanted heart, it mercilessly suppressed the emotions that didn't fit in with The Second. It struck at the negative aspects such as the temper and the jealousy, but it didn't stop there. The mask wanted to remove any and all emotions that could stage a mutiny and oust the identity that it had created. Just when it had assumed victory, The First started fighting back. The resurgence of the alien heart took place sporadically at first. The Second chalked it up to stress, but as time progressed the steel mask became weaker and weaker. It was a troubled time for every aspect of me that was involved, but the primary casualty was my four year relationship with Anna, which effectively ended when the mask split in two.

Nature abhors a vaccuum and The First took temporary control until things broke with Elciem. The Third was borne of a soft clay mask. When it rained, it got hard. When it was hot, it would become putty and if I wasn't careful, it would come off and my true face would be revealed. Most of the time, though, it was maleable. I could make it look like whatever I wished it to. I could become whomever I wanted. At first I reshaped the mask to fit Elciem's mold, but once that ended, I was left with infinite possibilities. Because I was unbeholden to Elciem -- or anyone, for that matter -- I could look like whatever I wanted. This period of my life has been marked by a previously undemonstrated ability to bend with the winds. Post-Elciem, the only goal was not to burn any bridges and, ultimately, to have no goal.

Yet fragments of The First and The Second remained. Shards of desire for money and writing. It isn't that I have been lazy so much as my goals have been crosswired. I've simultaneously wanted the stability of the steel and the freedom of The First's rubber face. Eventually, like both of its predecessors, it began eroding once decisions had to be made. When I became increasingly dissatisfied with my career path, when I noticed disturbing patterns in my dating habits, and I found myself growing year by year without being wiser for the wear.

When I first met Lisa, I never suspected that she would have any profound effect on me. I could tell from the start that the relationship wasn't going anywhere and that was of a comfort to me. I had, after all, avoided those with whom I felt a more genuine relationship was possible. It was an easy way to make a decision (for a relationship) without making a decision with consequences.

But, of course, all actions have consequences and Lisa reminded me of that. But that was only part of the effect that she had on me. When I became increasingly aware of her psychoses, I emotionally distanced myself. When I felt that I may be in danger, I waited until I was sure it was safe and left. Thoughts of her, however, lingered. Partly because of our Wednesday conversations and partly because a girl I met a couple months later had some of the same problems, which lead me to wonder why I seemed to gravitate towards such people.

Two nights ago, when I left the Starbucks after a particularly contentious discussion, I noticed what frightened me the most about her. I'd determined that she was more-or-less harmless and so it wasn't the veiled threats. It wasn't that she was a drama queen compared to my stability-seeking demeanor. It wasn't our differences at all, it was our similarities.

One thing that stuck in my mind was how much she wanted to make an impression on me. Not a positive one, necessarily, just a big one. To do so, she took on a number of identities and wore a number of masks. She was a rebel (getting kicked out of public places), a mystic (was visited by a "demi-god" in the third grade, giving her mystical powers -- I kid you not), a homemaker (she loved to cook), and just about any strange combination she could find. Over and over again she'd ask me, "Does that surprise you?" or "Does that intrigue you?"

Our masks were different, as were our goals. I used masks as a face through which to see the world, adding to the certainty and avoiding ambiguities I've never done well with. Mine were utilitarian faces of rubber, steel, and clay. Hers, on the other hand, were like ancient Greek theatre masks. Whereas her face could not explicitly wear connotations of a rebel, mystic, or homemaker, the masks conveyed that splendidly. Like me, though, she kept whoever the "real her" is a riddle wrapped in an enigma. Despite all of our conversations, I don't know who she really is at heart. I know her name, I know the things she's done and the masks she's worn, but I don't know who resides behind it. She's as afraid to show me as I have historically been to show my bare face to the world.

My Melodrama Crisis and the Me Myself and I Saga were, in a way, doomed from the start. I couldn't get the answers because I was asking the wrong questions. I wanted to know what I should do and, by extention, who I should be. I wanted to know what I needed to do and who I needed to be. Through I'm not sure the precise wording I used in the questions, I never seriously asked what I wanted to do and who I am.

To be sure, I am not self-ignorant. I can say that I probably know myself better than do most people know themselves. There are certain things that I am good at. I am intelligent, articlate, probing, curious, and a slew of other things. What I've failed to understand is what I am not. Or, maybe though I understood them, I could not bring myself to apply it. I have always used masks to exceed my expectations of myself. There's certainly a lot of good to be had in that, but often in search of improving my weaker points I neglect the stronger ones that energize me. In a sense, with everyone that I meet, I am putting my worst foot forward.

There have been many times in my life where I have failed. If I'd followed the ambitious courses I've set out on in my life, I'd be a lawyer by now pulling in a six figure salary for my expertise in intellectual properties. I might also be married and have a child (or two). Or maybe I would have seen the relationship as a no-go from the start and spared Anna a lot of pain. But with every failure comes a lesson. Every lesson, however, is not applicable everywhere all of the time. Failure does not consistently warrant putting on a new face. It warrants reflection and once I have a clear understanding of what happened and why, my gut will tell me if I'm about to do the same thing.

In the future, I think I'll listen to it more often. I'm also going to start listening to the self behind the mask. The one that instinctively tells me how good someone or something is for me. I think ever since The Second took charge in 1996, I've been afraid to hand over the keys to the self that created such catastrophe that a new mask was unavoidable. But who I am, at my core, is not that sixteen year old kid. Even in my most private, selfish, and petty moments, I've grown a great deal. So while I know a lot about myself, I don't know what the aggregate of it all means, and I think it's time to find out.

If I would give myself a chance
To find out who I am
I might turn out to be
Someone I like
Given the time
Cary Pierce, "Given the Time"

On June 13, 1996, I discovered that I didn't have to be who I always was. This was a mixed blessing.
On December 17, 2000, I determined that my relationship with Anna was functionally over and let her go. Fortunately for everyone involved, she was snatched up by Pierce in double-time.
On October 23, 2001, I left something that was making me miserable and proved, once and for all, I can survive a heartbreak more-or-less intact.
On October 23, 2002, I had a bite to eat with Elciem. She told me that her life was not working out as she'd hoped. When we parted ways, I wished her well and, for the first time in a year, honestly meant it.
On May 27, 2003, I sent Lisa the following email (some personal portions edited out):

Lisa,

I've been thinking about you since our last Wednesday bout. I'm tired of arguing, tired of fighting, and tired of watching you oscillate between blaming me for all of your problems and claiming that I never meant anything to you. It would be one thing if I felt like we were accomplishing something, but we're quite clearly not. I've tried to remain on civil and speaking terms with all the figures in my romantic past, but between us "speaking" and "civil" are mutually exclusive.

So I will not be online tonight. In fact, I'm going to keep my ICQ disconnected for the remainder of the week. Whenever I'm out on Wednesday, you either call me, come over, or wait until Thursday. If you call me, I will not answer. If you come over, I won't be here. If I find out that you've hung around my apartment for hours waiting for me to come home, I will file a complaint with the authorities. I am absolutely serious about this. You are no longer invited to be a part of my life.

[...]

I am not to blame for all of your problems. I know that they proceded me and unless you truly confront them, they will continue to do so. If you need help, get help. If you need (uhm, legal) drugs, take them. If you choose to simply find another verbal punching bag, there isn't much I can do about that. You have everything you need to be happy at your disposal.

[...]

I know that you're concerned about me, but I ask that you let that, as well as me, go. For my part, I've spent much of the year soul-searching and have only found hours wasted trying nail down an uncertain future. At the end of the day, I don't need to "find myself" because I'm right here. I don't know where I'll be six months from now, but I do know that no matter how much I think about it right now, I still won't know.

We have the rest of our lives in front of us and I'm going to start acting like it.

[...]

Take care,
Alex

PS If you respond to this email, I may or may not read it, but I will not respond.

On June 8th, the Fourth was christened and everything changed again.

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[Note: Revised and images removed]