kaonashi

everyone has a face, they're all distinct, but equally pretty or cute or fierce or pure. unfortunately, some of us have lost it through years and years of other people coercing them to fit other people's standards. some have gone as far as to surgically transform their bone structures to make others happy, some only feel the need to put an inch thick of make up. but all of them are the same: they are embarrassed to show other people their bare face.

by face, i mean identity.

by face, i mean that holy being that resides inside us all: our true self.

society has a standard, a construct, where we need to behave a certain way to be accepted: abide to exactly this religion, get married at around this age, have children, be a 9 to 5 worker no matter what. never question them too critically or you'll be damned. you are never been born to be enough for them after all. you are never your own person for that matter, you are everybody else's, you are society's property to toy with.

when a baby is born, though still an infant, they have their own distinct personality, they are their own selves. no baby has exactly the same attitude or drive to behave a certain way, thus by nature we are all different, we are never meant to abide to the same life structure.

when a baby is born, i'd like to think that they have endless possibilities to know themselves with the correct guidance and later, do whatever they want. i'd like to think that everyone has the same chance to answer to their so-called true calling.

but... sadly, no?

parents' expectation, peer pressure, and social constructs are amongst three things that confuse us, that make us look the other way when ourself wants us to look at a certain way.

some of us, at some point, have lost our faces trying to make everyone we love happy... by remolding our faces or by putting an inch thick of make up.

do you know kaonashi? he's a character in a very famous movie 'spirited away.' kaonashi doesn't have a face, but it doesn't mean that he doesn't live or exists for that matter. he just mimics other people, his identity is different according to the situation he's in. he has no roots, no core values, no self, but he exists. he makes problems, he makes resolution, he does a lot of things--but at the end of the day, what is he again?

i hate to think that some of us have started to become kaonashi.

let's be bold, let's look within ourselves: what are we, really? be as bold as you can, and be as stern to hold onto your conviction. your identity is sacred. Buddha wouldn't reach enlightenment if he abided to social constructs, nobody that history remembers would be great if they had become a slave of everyone's superficial pleasure.

so please? be bold.