Losing Oneself

Who am I? A question sometimes asked, its answer often forgotten.

There are moments in my life where I feel that my self slips through my fingers. Others would probably call it masking.

Wearing a mask based on the situation, often social related. But for me, it does not feel like a mask, but more like a knife cutting away my self. It hurts in ways I can’t describe.

I do not feel liberated but chained. Society forces us to wear them for many reasons by pointing the finger alone at society would be wrong. There are many times when no one forced anything, they were no consequences in being myself, besides my own judgment in the mirror. Sometimes it’s not the judgment of others that forces a mask but my own.

Those are the moments of biggest dissonance. One part that acts, one part that judges. They are not whole. I am not whole.

One thing, made of many, living in harmony, can they be seen as whole? One thing, made of many, living in chaos, can they be seen as whole?

Who draws the border? Me or society? The one or the many?

In pop-culture splitting personalities are often portrait as illness. They use multiple voices or strong different behavior to convey the “switch” to a different “personality”.

Weirdly enough I never saw it that way, I never imagined it like that. I always saw it as a different painting. Imagine how behavior and personalities are just a painting, a new brush stroke slightly changes one part. A new color theme, a new focal point, new perspective appear in the painting. Not the world is the living canvas, but you are.

And others can paint on you, past painted you, present paints you, the future will paint you, yourself paints you.

This is what I mean by losing oneself, the canvas is limited in size, and somebody paints over it. Desperately trying to restore what was before. Knowing that when I act too late, its lost forever.

Being in control means holding the brush.