I mean as in Spy x Family. Everyone has a secret they hide from everyone else, even their closest people.
Do you think real life is like that?
What’ll really blow you’re mind is when you realize we aren’t even honest with ourselves either.
Your mask you show to others is no more fake than the mask you show to yourself.
I think I’d go further and say that there isn’t really any such thing as a person’s “true self.” People present different aspects of themselves in different circumstances. It’s like asking which orientation you should hold an object against a light to see the “true shape” of its shadow.
I believe thats whats called in Buddhism as having No Self. You are who you are at that moment.
Could be, I’m not deeply familiar with Buddhism. There’s still a core “something” in there that’s casting the shadow, but it’s not something that can be interacted with directly so I don’t know if it would fit the normal definition of a “self”. You can only directly interact with the shadows it casts and those shadows are situation-dependent. It doesn’t think or act in isolation.
I suppose one could just pick some specific set of circumstances and call the self that emerges under those conditions the “true self.” For example you could call the version of you that emerges when you’re lying in bed alone at night thinking about the dumb stuff you did during the day your “true self.” But that’s a bit arbitrary.
But that’s a bit arbitrary
Exactly. It’s no more “true self” than any other. Even by themselves, most people play a role for themselves: they replay events of the day or tell themselves other stories and then believe whatever gives them an emotional fix. But it’s not real, and that is true for every other person as well. You are not your story about yourself, you are not someone’s story about you and nobody is your story about them.
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How could pleasing older women ever bring dishonor‽
Mohammed himself did as much with Khadija!
Be the change the world needs by replacing oil with pleasure as Saudi Arabia’s strongest export!
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It’s certainly better than the reverse.
username checks out
You getting married or just fornicating?
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Well, at least you know this can’t last forever. 🤷😅
I want variety
a good salad contains a mixture of fruits ;-)
The person you don’t show others is no more your “true self” than the one you do. It’s still you, existing in that moment, responding to your environment, whether it’s your deepest emotions or your best mask.
Yeah, I like to think of out more as a spotlight than a mask. You’re choosing which aspects of yourself to draw attention to rather than hiding yourself behind a persona.
That is, unless we’re talking about the masking that neurodivergent people talk about wherein they put conscious effort into hiding their essential nature in order to fit in.
I wouldn’t call it a “mask”, because it implies deception. Depending on who you are around, you show (and hide) different treats of your personality: In an employment setting you do not act the same way you would act when you hang with your boys (or girls, respectively) - you show different aspects of your personality while you are with your significant other, rather than with your parents. Also, your online behavior would be different from your offline behavior when navigating public situations.
Different people around you and/or different social settings make you filter things regarding your personal beliefs and/or personal traits.
As someone with ADHD, absolutely. I’ve heard that many people with nerodivergent brains use this coping skill.
I’m wondering to what extent some self diagnosed neurodivergent people experience normal, but generally unacknowledged mental experiences and think they must be weird, otherwise it would be talked about more.
As others point out in the thread, this is generally written up as a universal experience of people.
It’s not ADHD. It’s literally everyone. There is no such thing as a true self. That’s just what Disney movies and belief in souls brainwashed us to think.
No. I think people are extremely diverse in how they experience and engage with their individual subjectivity. I think a lot of people are like that at least some of the time, but it’s more complicated and probably a nonconscious behavior for most people when they are doing it. Describing it as a “mask” I think is potentially misleading because I don’t think that’s necessarily how people experience this phenomena subjectively.
Politicians do this all of the time. Say and do one thing as theater to the public, turn around and do and say different things out of the public eye we later find out about.
I do this fairly often too. Where I work, nobody doesn’t need to know of shit about my personal life, it is none of their business. There’s nobody I like enough there that warrants me gushing about myself. I have about maybe five key friends who all know in depth of me, but how I tell things slightly differs from another but they’re generally getting the same stories and experiences I talk about.
This. Exactly this. But because Christian Capitalism needs us to be individuals, being “nothing” must be characterized as a negative.
The only fucking reason people experience the emptiness under all the masks as a negative is because they’ve been conditioned to think there’s supposed to be something there.
Yet the emptiness is the experience of literally everyone who bothers to look. And it is a relief. You’re not anyone, you’re not “supposed” to be one way or another. There’s just an exchange with everything in existence and you can just respond as called in any given situation.
But because Christian Capitalism needs us to be individuals
“being an individual builds character” or sth (smh my head)
They covered this when I took Sociology 101 about 40 years ago.
I think everyone has about 3 “versions” of themselves.
One version for work. One for family. One for friends and partners.
The work version is the least honest because so much is unacceptable to say at work and people self-censor a lot. Say the wrong things and you will get meetings, write ups and maybe fired. Everybody gives their boss to much information at least one time and learns why you don’t do that.
The friends and partners version is normally the most honest version and can be completely genuine for some. Good friends can be trusted to keep secrets and don’t judge.
Family is normally in the middle but this depends. If the family was incredibly old fashioned, conservative or religious then maybe a person would need to self-censor even more than they do at work?
Persona (psychology) - Wikipedia https://share.google/aeMgXcVW6RqPHrwg7
As for everyone keeping a secret from everyone? Maybe. You don’t have to share everything with everyone, it’s ok to keep stuff to yourself if you want to. Most secrets are probably pretty banal though.
Yes.
Love, -A formerly closeted queer person.
Huh. Did not expect a SPYxFAMILY reference here! わくわく!
Linkin Park said it 25 years ago, “everyone has a face that they hold inside,” I think that was in Papercut, the opening track to their debut album, Hybrid Theory. Good song about that.
I don’t really believe everyone has a true self they hide. I do believe we don’t share certain things with certain people, sometimes for good reason.
What I do believe is that we are a different person to every person who knows us. That is to say, if your parents are still together, you have these two people who have known you since you were an infant, but they have different views of you. Or if you have a decent sized friend group, each of these friends sees you slightly differently. I think this is more useful to us. Knowing who we are to each person we meet; rather than focusing on the persona we share with others, understanding how another sees us and acting accordingly can be used to great influence and effect. Find the people who underestimate you and show them what you can do. Find the people who don’t like you and show them kindness. Things like that.
For the sake of the survey, I know I do.
