Wearing Masks

   Oscar Wilde once said, "Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask and he will tell you the truth."

   I pondered the quote and found it smacked against the idea that people hide behind masks. That you really don't see who they are until the mask is removed. I thought about the me I present to people. I tend to be very introverted and view myself as rather boring. A kind of "what you see is what you get" kind of a person.

   I find the writer me much more interesting. The idea of putting on a mask and pretending to be someone else is exciting. After all, I can be anybody I want to be whether it's a teenager finding himself swept away to another planet, a police detective solving a murder, an alien discovering what it is to be human, or conversely a person realizing they may not be exactly human. The possibilities are truly endless.

   When I wear the mask of a character I create, there is a sense of freedom. Through them I can use colorful language, take dangerous risks, confront enemies, be humorous, flippant, impulsive or calculating in ways my unmasked self never would. With the mask firmly in place I can explore within myself what it is to be bad and good, scared and brave, lonely and loved, hopeless and hopeful, and it becomes part of the character. Maybe with all the different masks I don I see the real me as the words make their way onto the paper. Maybe, in part, the truth of me is what I tell readers in my writing.