We all wear masks

Here's a little question for you:

When attending some kind of "dress up party", be it a costume ball or Halloween party (although no one I know ever threw one of those here in Holland), what costume would you choose? Does what you pick say anything about your personality or psyche?

What your Halloween mask reveals could be more important than what it hides.

When you notice how your friends and family dress up at such a party, you learn about their personality, true self, and what makes them tick. Do they tend towards superhero costumes or nurse attire? Are they dressed as food, murderers, or movie stars?

The psychology of dressing up in a costume is all about what your choice of costume reveals about your personality traits.

Of course, there is more than one thing about your outfit that can reveal something about your personality: say, you didn't have a lot of money to go out and shop for an appropriate attire, so you just threw a few things together and made something completely new out of it. You're probably a creative person. Or, if you pick an outfit because of how comfortable it fits rather than how good it looks, that could say something about what your priorities are.

Anyway, here are a few theories on the psychology of the costume ball, (these were stolen from the net):

•French Maid Costumes. Your "mask" could reveal a natural comfort or inclination towards a particular persona. If you choose a sexy French maid or dominatrix costume, you could be either sexually repressed or sexually liberated. In other words, you’re a sex kitten yearning to escape or you’re already giving, good and game in the bedroom – and you probably enjoy being in the centre of attention.

•Superman or Spiderman Costumes. If you gravitate towards superhero or heroine costumes, you could have a child-like fantasy of saving the world and a desire to fight evil. You like the feeling of being omnipotent and strong, admired and revered. Superhero Halloween costumes reveal personality traits that revolve around fantasies of good and evil.

•Fairy Princess or Peter Pan Costumes. The innocent costumes of your childhood could indicate a wish for youthfulness, and a desire to recapture the naïve tendencies of children. Perhaps you wish for safety and simplicity. Similar to the superhero persona, you may wish for the magical ability to save the world from evil. Some costumes reveal not just personality traits, but also secret childhood wishes.

•Rabbits, Horses, Puppies or other Animal Costumes. Animals represent instincts and the characteristics of the creature of your choice. For instance, bears represent power and strength. Giraffes are peaceful and serene; bunny rabbits furry and cuddly. Animals have mythological as well as contemporary traits, such as loyalty (dog) and royalty or self-confidence (lion). Dressing as cat, for instance, could mean you admire independence in yourself -- or you wish for it.

•Vampire Costumes. Choosing a macabre costume reveals personality traits that revolve around your fascination with the dark side, and perhaps a desire to get in touch with your own dark and scary self.

Although there has been an instance where I attended a friend's birthday party as a witch, the scary costume is not really my cup of tea. At the time I must have been 10 or 11 and the party had a horror (well, as much as our age and parents allowed...) theme. I remember us watching an OLD version of Frankenstein, which was hilarious rather than creepy.  :)

So if I had to choose now what to wear, it would be something along the lines of a fairy or elf (you guessed that, right?) or maybe a harem girl or mermaid. Perhaps a little cliché, but there you have it.

The thing is, I suddenly realise that even though I was dressed as a witch, it wasn't a particularly ugly/warty (hah!) one. I had on a long black dress, had hair reaching my backside at the time and wore lipstick in a very dark red, the shade bordering on black. Think Morticia Addams. I would have never put up with being green or wrinkly...

Which causes me to think there is an aspect of sensuality to my fantasy. That combined with the sort of magicality and beauty you'd associate with a fairy or mermaid.
I'd never be able to identify with an animal, with the exception of the cat maybe, but not because of their projecting independence, but rather their sensual feline movement, sleekness and underlying touch of danger (being formidable predators).

On the other side, the part about wanting to save the world from evil and the desire to hang on to innocence and finding security certainly rings true.
Then there's Hubby: on asking him what he would be, he answered without thinking (or maybe he's had it all planned in his head for years...) "Robin Hood!"
Now, I have no particular desire to see my man in tights, but I otherwise really like it. Feeding the poor by stealing from the rich, being good and just and skillful, brains over brawn and all that jazz. 'S OK...

Anyway, 99.99% of my life goes by without costume balls (sadly, I'd kinda like to play dress up for once), but it made me think about masks in general and how we live with maks in our social lives, how we let others see us and even see ourselves.

Masks have been around since ancient times and have been used in ceremony, storytelling, and dramatic enactment. They are worn for performance, entertainment, disguise, concealment, or protection. The "masks" we wear on a day to day basis allow us to reveal or conceal ourselves in our own way.

Persona actually is a word that derives from the Latin for a kind of mask made to resonate with the voice of the actor (per sonare meaning "to sound through"), but often refers to the practical and successful personality that we use most of the time in the workplace and social relationships. It's a bit like a facade that we start to develop in childhood when we get approval for behaving in certain ways. At the same time, we also learn to disguise and repress those features and traits that not approved- negative characteristics such as anger, greed, envy, and jealousy. We also may repress any other aspects such as creativity or self-confidence if these qualities are not appreciated or affirmed.

Carl Gustav Jung wrote extensively about the concept of persona and the various ways it manifests itself. He also proposed that there is a dark side to the personality, well-know to the field of psychology as the shadow. It includes both repressed, instinctual feelings and untapped potential. The shadow is not just the "evil" opponent of persona, but is also imagination and creativity left behind or forgotten because of sensible or good behavior.

For the growing child, the development of a viable social persona is a vital part of adapting to, and preparing for adult life in the external social world. "A strong ego relates to the outside world through a flexible persona; identification with a specific persona (doctor, scholar, artist, etc.) inhibits psychological development." For Jung "the danger is that people become identical with their personas - the professor with his textbook, the tenor with his voice." The result could be a shallow, brittle, conformist kind of personality, with an excessive concern for what people think - an unreflecting state of mind in which people are "utterly unconscious of any distinction between themselves and the world in which they live. They have little or no concept of themselves as beings distinct from what society expects of them". The stage was set thereby for what Jung termed Enantiodromia - the emergence of the repressed individuality from beneath the persona later in life: "the individual will either be completely smothered under an empty persona or an enantiodromia into the buried opposites will occur."

The breakdown of the persona constitutes the typically Jungian moment both in therapy and in development - the "moment" when that excessive commitment to collective ideals masking deeper individuality - the persona - breaks down. Given Jung's view that the persona is a semblance, the dissolution of the persona is absolutely necessary for individuation. Nevertheless, its disintegration may well lead initially to a state of chaos in the individual: "one result of the dissolution of the persona is the release of fantasy/disorientation."

As the individuation process gets under way, "the situation has thrown off the conventional husk and developed into a stark encounter with reality, with no false veils or adornments of any kind."

Recovery, the aim of individuation, is not only achieved by work on the inside, but also by a readaptation in outer life - including the recreation of a new and more viable persona. To develop a stronger persona might feel inauthentic, like learning to play a role, but if one cannot perform a social role then one will suffer. That's how one goal for individuation is for people to "develop a more realistic, flexible persona that helps them navigate in society but does not collide with nor hide their true self." Eventually, "in the best case, the persona is appropriate and tasteful, a true reflection of our inner individuality and our outward sense of self."

Yeah... definately not there yet... but I've always loved the lyrics in Sarah McLachlan's Fumbling Towards Ecstacy and I think it's rather appropriate here and it's what I wish for you all and myself:

Peace in the struggle

To find peace

Comfort on the way

To comfort

Why have I been blabbering on about all this? BECAUSE... I don't know, my head is a weird place sometimes, all I really wanted to do was show you my latest painting. And, oh, it's a mask, so...
Having said all this, I've been noticing some interesting things about the figures I've been drawing, they seem to reflect me or however I would like to be more than I realised before... anyway, here you go!