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Masks

What is Identity?

Dear Reader,

There’s a violence in the air. The Hong Kong riots are still going, with the ban on masks being liberally ignored. Masks are a iconic piece of culture, having place in many different areas of reality. The very term mask has infinite definitions. As verb or noun, it can mean to conceal, to cover, or simply to don a physical mask. As a noun, it can be the mask itself, or a number of other things. Mask work in drama holds a sacred place to many, as masks themselves were originally used in religious and sacred festivals. When masks are used, there’s almost a sense of mutual respect: between the mask and the mask wearer. A good performance can make a mask come to life; it can breathe vitality into the mask’s lungs. It can help it breathe, and do it justice. But I wear a mask every day. I wear the face of a character everywhere I go. And I can’t ever do them justice. Their name is Me, and their character can never be whole. We all walk around with masks; the barrier between who we look like and who we are. The only way we can do them justice is by relenting to their needs. Who will fall to who is left for you to decide. Will you let you mask rule you?

With love,

The guy who sits next to you on the subway.

The City of Tears

Dear Reader,

I’m not allowing myself to breathe. None of us are. We all have some chain holding us back, often one of our own design. One we can never break. It’s constricting, suffocating. It will never let us go. Or maybe it’s us who won’t let go. Maybe it’s us who’ve become so familiar with our pain that we’ve accepted our shackles; we’ve romanticised our struggles into something unrealistic. We’ve created this web of solitary indifference; a city of tears. It’s come to the point where everyone feels it to a varying extent, but nobody will talk about it, for fear of breaching the taboo. For suffering in silence is glory. It’s almost treated with a joking manner. For one second, I’ll break my cosplay as ‘just another face in the crowd’. I have Asperger’s syndrome. As a result of this, I have an obsession with words (and numbers, and film quotes, and other stuff). There’s a word that keeps getting stuck in my head: wanderlust. This feeling of being blissfully alone and independent. With the ability to go wherever you want to go. The euphoric feeling of being on an island; your own world. You’re not locked in, everyone else is locked out. The city of tears makes me feel that way too. The eternal rainy day reminds me of the sunny island of independence. But that’s just me. Who are you?

With love,

The guy on a laptop in that café.

Annoying

Dear Reader,

I’ve been stuck with a feeling; that’s all I can say. This tiresome, heart-ripping, love-tearing, lonesome emotion. I feel like I’m a burden to all I know. Like I take more than I give. That inequality, that imbalance of the social scales; I feel like I’m on the wrong side of it all. I feel like a mosquito, in every sense possible. I’m buzzing in the ears of my peers, a nuisance constantly screeching for self-validation; in itself a nuisance. I feel as small and insignificant as that small winged creature. Smaller than an ant against the impossibly magnanimous picture. This will be a short post; more of a check-up than anything else. But I’m that mosquito buzzing. Ever tiring, ever annoying.

With Love,

The stranger on the bus.

Hi.

Dear Reader,

Hi. Hello. I’m happy you could make it. I’m not sure how you got here, or what you’ll make of this, but I’m happy that you’re now a part of my journey. This place was made on a whim. On a fleeting fantasy I couldn’t let go of. Welcome to my place; perhaps the one place in the world that truly is. I’ll be trying to write about what I’m feeling, and what I’m thinking. Expect waxing crazed diatribes on everything under the sun. Who am I? I’m nobody. I’m just another face in the crowd.