Tex Norman

Me, My Mask, and My Other Masks



Posted: Tuesday, February 16, 2010

by Tex Norman

In masks outrageous and austere,

The years go by in single file;

But none has merited my fear,

And none has quite escaped my smile.

Elinor Wylie



For about 10 years, I was a high school drama teacher. You can't study drama without encountering the ancient Greek plays. One of the more dominate traits of Greek theater is its use of masks.

Most of us think of masks as something used to conceal. In western movies the bad guys wore black hats and covered their nose and mouth with a bandanna . They were concealing their identities. The Lone Ranger wore a mask making the phrase forever famous, "Who was that masked man?"

In Greek theater the mask was used NOT to conceal, but to reveal. There is a small but interesting mask vocabulary: Guise, disguise, persona, person, impersonate, personification, mask, masquerade, mummer, mime, pantomime, costume, pretend, prevaricate, even pretext .

It is a career of make-believe, of masks. We all

have masks in life.

Judd Nelson



The word persona is especially interesting to me. Persona is derived from two Latin words. The first Latin words "per" meant "through" and the second Latin word "sonare" meant "to sound." Put them all together and you have PER-SONARE and that combination meant "something through which one speaks."

Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and

know we cannot live within.

James A. Baldwin

Carl Jung wrote some about masks, and persona. The problem I have is that I have fitted masks on my face to tell the world who I am, and what I am like. I have created various personas and they often do reveal some aspect of myself, but it is always a selective revelation. Humans are complex. People have facets, but we show only a few sides of ourselves. I communicate ME through my created or selected persona, but I have not revealed all of me. In some ways our personas are like selective memory. The "me" the world sees is part of me, but not all of me. My life masks have served to protect me from historical harms. My mask protections have had limited success, but the shortfall is that I have forgotten myself. I lost sight of the real me, the complete me, the total me.

The closing years of life are like the end of a masquerade party, when the masks

are dropped.

Cesare Pavese


Tex Norman is a social worker, currently working at the Oklahoma DHS Abuse and Neglect hotline. He interviews people reporting abuse and/or neglect of children and vulnerable adults and writes a narrative. The narratives (and demographics) are used to initiate investigations of the allegations. He says it is like writing 8 to 10 stories a day. In August 2012, he will have been married to Kathie for 40 years. He has a son Ryan who earned a PhD from Princeton and he is now a scientist doing research in molecular biology. Tex spends his free time working as an artist and writer. He has one art site, and a blog that might be of interest: http://tex-norman.artistwebsites.com/ and http://collagepoetrybytex.blogspot.com/
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Top-level comments on this article: (4 total)
» left by Kenny
from Fall River 2 years 95 days ago.
"I communicate ME through my created or selected persona, but I have not revealed all of me. In some ways our personas are like selective memory. The "me" the world sees is part of me, but not all of me. My life masks have served to protect me from historical harms. My mask protections have had limited success, but the shortfall is that I have forgotten myself. I lost sight of the real me, the complete me, the total me. "
 
*** I love the brutal honesty and critical thought you reveal here Tex. You're a man's man. A guy who isn't afraid to say, "Hey, I'm only human."
 
*** Changing faces is something we are ALL guilty of.
» left by Tex Norman 2 years 93 days ago.
47 fans.
Thanks for being a reader Kenny.. I've been seeing shrinks for 30 years and what I'm learning about myself is that I'm not brutally honest enough. I'm still discovering stuff suppressed, covered by a mask for so long that once I get a peek behind the mask I'm shocked by what is behind it, and lurking inside of me. The most powerful lie is the lie we tell ourselves. Keep reading and writing. tex
» left by Linda DeWitt
 2 years 92 days ago.
67 fans. Follow Linda DeWitt on twitter!
Great article and I loved your honesty. I believe what Kenny was saying that we have all worn masks at times. Keep peeling those masks off. It will set you free. Thanks for sharing.
» left by Anonymous
from Garden City, Utah 2 years 90 days ago.
I enjoyed your article immensely. It truly lead me to ponder the fact that I do put on masks. These masks do in fact keep me from progressing. I am enlightened and encouraged to change before the curtain comes down. Thank you.
» left by Nicki Leavens
 2 years 89 days ago.
Loved the article. It held a special interest to me because I'm training to be a counsellor. We all wear masks depending on who we are with and how comfortable we are with certain people. If we act too far from our true selves then we are bound to lose touch with our true essence. I suppose it is when we are close to death we gain the confidence to drop the masks and become ourselves.
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