Faces and Feelings

Most have heard some version of the phrase "Hiding one's feelings behind one's face" - meaning to hide what is truly being felt behind a facade, a (usually) fake exterior. I am more interested in the reverse of this idea - that of hiding one's face behind one's feelings.

One's face is more than what one presents to the world. You can, as said in Bye, Bye Birdie, "put on a happy face" but our culture recognizes that a face put on is not the real person. There are phrases such as "he showed his true face" or the obvious "two-faced" insult that implies that neither face is real. One's face, one's true face, is, simply, who one is.

In this era of personal webpages, instant fame with youtube, and, of course, Facebook, there are snippets of identity available at every click. (On a side note, don't ask if I'm on Facebook - I'm not. This is as close as I get.) Employers, co-workers, that blind date on Saturday night - people are using these technological resources to, in theory, find out who the person they are interested in 'really' is. The frightful aspect of all this is the idea that one's "face-value," that is, the face presented online, is becoming the basis for judgements made about the reality and identity of one's self by others. The false or incomplete face is being seen as real.

So, there's the scary set-up. Now, how does this relate to hiding one's face behind one's feelings? (For that matter, what exactly do I mean by that phrase?)

Who one is, the core self, is a deeper thing than can be explored in one entry. However, I will say this - I do not think that we are defined by our feelings. Not our emotions, not our passions, not our regrets. Our experiences, yes, our reactions, yes, our self-spirit, yes but there is a difference between these things and our feelings. For example, I have a passion for writing. I love it, I love every aspect of it - even the hair-pulling, banging-head-on-desk ones. But, does this passion define me? No, or at least, only on the surface. Deeper than, and driving, the passion for writing is the need to express myself, to create and react to all that is around me. This need does not have the burning of a passion or the fluidity of a feeling - it is simply a part of me, like the need to breathe or the ability to think. However, this core part of my self is in a way hidden by my passion for writing - in this way, I am hiding my face behind my feelings. In this same manner we cannot define others simply by what we see - and thusly may never be able to define another person. The person who gets angry at a mess left for them to clean up is not defined by that anger (even if it happens constantly.) Rather, perhaps hir is defined by the deeper sense of a need for order and organization. The way the mind works, the structured or chaotic or twisted thinking within it, seems to be what defines a person far more than feelings. People who feel the need for order will show that in more than just anger or exasperation at a mess. It will come through in their habits, their hobbies, their work choice, and so forth. In this way, their "tidiness" etc cannot define them because the root of that tidiness (or anger or whatever) is something else entirely.

In this, we find that we can only judge or know people empirically, by the symptoms they show of who they are.