“I was ashamed of myself when I realized life was a costume party, and I attended with my real face.” -Franz Kafka.
Filters, AI, social media, and virtual reality: we live in the ultimate costume party. It does not matter if you RSVPed or not: we are all in this together. We can not just tear society down brick by brick, but we can, however, change how we interact with its varied complexities. And the costumes we wear can be a motley of items, which only complexifies this: adding to the piling of layers. It is not just people who fit in who are in this costume party; people fitting in or not are irrelevant to this discussion. In and out are just more tags people put on their costumes; if being you also means being popular- yay! People try futilely to be unique and original by copying what supposed outcasts do to be unique and original. Ironically, many people will jump on a trend in the name of uniqueness. Donning this cloak of self-expression shrouds us to a greater degree; whatever popular culture tells us to be (original or not) is even further away. We are still wearing a costume society sold us, one labeled as ‘outcast’ or ‘unique’ but from this world nonetheless. So even the words unique and outcast are labels and costumes, defeating what it means to be yourself.
Googling “How to be yourself” certainly isn’t the correct way to find yourself; falling down that road only sells you to more and more lies. Ralph Waldo Emerson tells us that it is in solitude we find ourselves, “It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who amid the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” Emerson and others argue we shouldn’t wear a mask. Oscar Wilde quipped in The Happy Prince, “Man is least himself when he talks in his person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”
In Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self Reliance, he writes, “My life is for itself and not for a spectacle.” Humans tend to create a spectacle. Whether we are dancing on TikTok, posting on Instagram, or trying to be the best at whatever sport/hobby we have. But do these truly matter? It is in a deeper and more spiritual understanding of life that reward and notoriety become meaningless. This message is not new news, but then why do we continue to act that way? Why do we put on our costumes when we leave the solitude of our homes? The issue is even more pressing today, and contemporary society has given us dozens of ways to hide ourselves: dozens of ways to convince us that our true selves are wrong and inferior. Leaving us ashamed of our real faces, for it feels so insufficient compared to the lavish costumes everyone else has donned instead.
Emerson calls envy ignorance and imitation suicide, “he must take himself for better, for worse.” I would highly encourage everyone to read Emerson’s essay Self Reliance, and I end with a passage from it.
“These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world.Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.”
Will we be brave enough to attain the height of our work and genius by discarding our costumes? Letting the person we know in solitude be the person others around us know also?
I love that you are asking meaningful questions and sharing them with us. My favorite question in this post is “Why do we continue to act that way?” It’s clearly not as simple as “well, just stop.” What is driving the behavior? Great opportunity for your sociology studies. 😉