The Masquerade: Psychosocial Truth

He, who depends on the lining of his everyday face. She, the perfection of wealth and beauty. The symbolism of power and the indestructible bond between a circle of friends, and the charisma of authority they emanate as if it’s a part of them. They call it ‘identity’ sometimes, but more often, the masks of and for the real society.

“Be true to yourself, then everyone will follow. Everyone will accept you, whoever you are.”

The appearance which shows beauty and a face that radiates admiration, fine and pore-closed glass skins that are acknowledged as the flawless feature of health, the glittering gowns and suits made of wealth and status, luxurious cars, a circle of well-toned bodyguards, fancy properties and composure with class, as popular as it is. Plausibly recognizable and classic. The eyes as shining diamonds, the silver spoons–worked on or being fed to–in the table, the balcony of treasure chest both beneath the ground and up in the air, who would have deny the liking on this ideal life of riches and precious stones creeping around their bodies? Now, where do you belong? Are you one of them? Look at you with the society you were in. Where are you?

The unbreakable bond between social relationship and mental health is the contagious ties of the powerful human mind and the environment. Ideologies to standard–societal and cultural–as the nature of thinking, the collection of its creativity basically results in the brain’s new list of outlook toward its surroundings. The craft of modernity and twists of classical beauty that identifies the status of someone in every generation forms the standards in which misunderstood and struck the simplicity-normal and basic life of an individual.

Every eye says reflection, every words’ blades leave deep wounds, ramping in thorns for acceptance is identical to being tortured. Speak of majority, but anyone will think of just cutting their foot to fit into Cinderella’s glass slippers and get blessed with the idea of marrying the honorable prince than to be the content of ‘news today’ as the entitled ‘dissatisfying and old’. Everyone is afraid of being an outcast, but never did changing themselves for the society’s expectation and standards. Dancing under someone’s spotlight is most likely to be staged into puppetry. Classic dances as the genre turned into jazz and pop people started to like, some just fine being with the same course of rhythm, but others want the standard beat of the known community.

Socialization requires no age, gender, races and status, that’s the idea of social life in books and other conforming dictionaries, but get to buy the real aura of how the community practice it. Isn’t it just ironic? Typical bullying in class or outside any school and work premises, degrading someone over their clothes, bags, resources, even family backgrounds, a perfect depiction of how movies and series of stories tells that the ground beneath know not about the social life, only and if you are labeled equally or higher than someone’s expensive high-heeled shoes.
People try to manipulate the value of camaraderie through the content of similarities and bond, but some creates the opposite in order to fill in their social life.

The Social relationship builds both its advantage and disadvantage remarks, specifically in psychological behavior. Mercy Care (n.d) recognized the benefits of socializing and falls into its understandable and basic orders: 1) better mental health that can lighten one’s mood 2) lowers the risk of dementia 3) promotes a sense of safety, belonging and security and 4) allows people to confide others and vice versa. These rolls of beneficiary occupations reveals that social life construct the strong bond of the mind, whether it plays the healthy being or the negative influence of it in the psychological response. Personal control refers to individuals’ beliefs that they can control their life outcomes through their own actions. Social ties may enhance personal control (perhaps through social support), and, in turn, personal control is advantageous for healthy habits, mental health, and physical health (Mirowsky and Ross 2003; Thoits 2006). The connection of social life and the mental state trace the result in a situation whereas it may involve the pros and cons perception towards the environment just because of the way they perceive someone and what they think.

Peer pressure, is always one of the factors why social gatherings are the starting runway of status and financial sustainability. Checking on dresses not only to fit into the event, but to impress and create a pleasing public figure. To whom it may concern, the decision of making what’s comfort dress-up is else to find. Between all the gatherings, it will tend that between comrades and new faces, the bond is just the result of the ‘tastes of similarities and likes’. The same goes in knowing new personalities that can likely prove how good the social charm a person can hold just in the beginning of the conversation. Social anxiety discourages the value of camaraderie to its expansion due to the factors like judgement and cultural differences. These traits unable the sociability behavior of a person that can put them into an antisocial or an outcast. This trait is uncommon for each group of community, there’s always a person longing for being alone, which can also be misunderstood, sometimes, as an introvert. These types of anxieties give the clear explanation on how the human mind, emotions, instincts and the social environment creates another face, specifically for the public.

“What if they won’t like my outfit for today? What if no one wants to be friends with me because of this? No one will accept someone with a lowly-class of fashion. Nerds, they made fun of us. What if I can’t reach their expectations? What if I fail?”

Decide for a show off without crossing your own unreachable jewelries, try to pull off your OOTD by not looking at someone’s best form and colors, don’t compete through the eyes. Deal with what you have, earn the gaze of the society through your own riches, confidence makes everything on top. All we need is the courage to turn our back from a rotten societal state of thinking that to create a circle of companions, we need to fit in and provide them the expectations and standard they want to propose.

In this world of great composure, magnificent and luxurious living, there is always a face behind a fancy mask, dealing with the society’s expectation and acceptance, who’s bombarded with false truth relying on the public eye standards. These days, the world is not about who to trust and what to, this pays more of ‘how to be believed and how to make them inclined to you with the truth of being you’.

Mask Off,

The Party’s Over.