Faces

Demosthenes (384 BC - 322 BC)
Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true.

Just as the song from Macross Plus says, I wanna be an angel.

Human beings are imperfect, but that is only stating the obvious. I am imperfect as well, but there is almost perfection in being imperfect. From looking at things from a human perspective, we strive to be our own god, our own image of perfection. Thus, by being imperfect, we always strive for perfection. People usually are not content with their imperfect selves, so they look up to people to be their model of perfection. While the people they may want to model themselves after may be far from perfect, they often choose to ignore or overlook these parts of them in favor of more positive aspects of their personality, bodily traits, and abilities.

However, who creates this image of perfection? It is easy to point the finger at individuals, stating that the way that they look spurs people on to look like them. However, society as a whole plays a part in all of this. There is always a general acceptance and desire of what is good and appropriate. For example, females in American society seem to find a need to have large breasts, generally at least a C cup or greater. This comes from males, but what makes males want bigger breasts? Does it come from a general desire to want to return to youthful days as a baby, suckling on their mother's tit? On the other hand, is it just a random fantasy that was once disliked by society but became accepted after a while? This strive for perfection creates women such as Chelsea Charms and Wendy Whoppers who thrive upon this general desire by men to want bigger breasts. However, that is not answering the question at large: is this bigger breast phenomenon from female feelings of inadequacy or just male fantasy? I refuse to come up with an answer because I cannot begin to fathom what is behind all of it and this is not the sole purpose of this journal entry.

Denying these facts is denying who we are; denying the very culture that we were built upon. We always want to be the best at what we do, and this does not come from simple survival principles. Sure, you could make the case that people strive to be perfect in order to have the best opportunity to pass on their genes to the next generation, but this seems too simple. I cannot remember the exact quote or who said it, but it came out as something like, "To every complex question, there is an answer that is short, simple, and wrong." Basically, there is more to it than simple survival skills. Indeed, people get to the point of "perfecting their imperfection" that it is almost absurd. People who can lift hundreds of pounds of weights but cannot do a simple pull-up; people who can read 500 pages in less than an hour but cannot recall even minute details in the text; people who can be President of the United States but do not know how to operate a phone or cook for themselves. For all of their perfection, they are still heavily flawed and cannot perform basic tasks, and yet, these people will still pass on their genes. This point does blow the theory out of the water; people can still be heavily flawed and still procreate a few or many children.

I lie.

Let me expand on this point: I lie. The fact is that I lie everyday, to myself, to other people, and often times, it is done subconsciously without even actively thinking about it. However, it is also consciously thought about, but cannot be helped. Why? Because it is who I am. Do not forget that is also who we are. We want to be perfect, so we bend ourselves to be as perfect as we can be, but in the process, our lying makes us imperfect.

For example, I recently got back my second exam from my History 101 class and I got an A on it. I see just that little grade, and it makes my day; I am happy, and why should I not be? I did good work and received a good grade, right? This is where we deviate into possibilities. I could just lie to myself and keep it simple, believing that I did do a good job and I do deserve a good grade, but what if the teacher's assistant simply handed me an A because he did not feel like reading through all 200 papers in order to save on time? Indeed, the paper has only the grade circled on the final page with a "Very nice essay" compliment underneath the grade; why not make random comments here and there, pointing out good references or bad wording? Or could it just be that the teacher's assistant did not want to look bad, and so, only gave out acceptable grades (Acceptable grades, being deemed by society, as C- or above) in order to make himself look good? He already said that he was "hard-pressed to give out bad grades," so could this not mean that he just handed out grades in order to make him and the professor look better than they really are? I admit that I did not even get to read the last hundred pages of the book and, therefore, did not have the fullest grasp of the meaning of Robert Graves' "Good-Bye To All That." So really, does that mean that I still deserve an A? Just a point to ponder.

I find myself twisting who I am to look better in the eyes of others; to look more perfect. Once again, however, this act of deceiving others in order to look more perfect ends up making us less perfect. Why would someone lie in order to be perfect? Why can they not just be perfect? This is always something that has bothered me to a degree. Relating to Freud, it is a battle between society and self; superego and id; mankind and man. It is a constant tug-of-war between who we want to be and who we are.

Another example: I just want to have fun, however, society dictates certain things of me unless I want to be seen as a bum, useless, trash, et cetera. I know what I find to be fun: watching anime, making out or making love to a lovely lady, hanging out with friends of mine, and partying it up. According to Freud, these aspects are of the id, and they are ephemeral, short-lived, fleeting, and ultimately pointless; I think Freud is wrong on this part, because what we find to be short-lived we only enjoy even more for the rare moments that we do get to enjoy them. I think they are more fun because I do not get to do them all the time. However, there is the tug in the opposite direction: society's needs and desires. I may not want to major in political science at heart, but it is the one major that I am best at. Why choose to major in anything? Why even go to college? This is true, but it is also something that is dictated by society. What does one do with a political science major? I have no clue, but it brings home the bacon, and if it does not, then it is deemed useless, and useless things are usually discarded. Sure, it does seem as if slavery has evolved from the fields to the office, and we only work the jobs we hate to buy shit we do not need, but it is what is deemed by society as needed and desired.

I realize that this is all my choice, but there is another aspect that comes into all of this: basic human loneliness. We want to be individuals, but we do not want to be alone. While this may seem like a contradiction, it is not. At the basic level, everyone is lonely; whether they wish to admit this or not is up to them, but it seems to be an apparent truth to me. They band together in order to protect one another, to make sure that they survive, and to enhance themselves, but at the same time, they wish to still be individuals; to be different from the next person. This is why I usually feel it necessary to pull the "tough guy routine" with many people, but at the same time, I depict a "caring, soft routine." While my stereotyping of certain behavioral characteristics may seem out of place, many people do the exact same thing, only in many slightly varying ways. Thus, I am an individual, but I do not want to be alone, so I conform myself to be what society wants me to be.

I wanna be an angel.

One of my personal heroes is Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. He once gave an oration called "Man: The Killer Angel;" largely, I think that Chamberlain was saying that man is but an angel already, and angels are not perfect beings. However, angels are very close to perfect, but not quite pushing pass the threshold that would deem them to be "perfect." If they were perfect, they would be gods themselves, but they are not. Anyways, Dictionary.com defines angel as being "a kind and lovable person" and "one who manifests goodness, purity, and selflessness." By sticking to this basic definition, I could be an angel, but it seems so much more difficult than just that. Not in a sense that I need to look "heavenly" or "celestial," but rather, I need to exhibit these characteristics all the time, and doing all of that seems very difficult.

At least Demosthenes got it right to some degree. Mankind wishes to be something that it is not, and it will lie to itself in order to delude itself into believing that it has become what it is not. We all show our faces, but they are masks hiding something else larger, something more hidden that most people will not admit to. Our faces hide deceit and lies, and it seems that only when we can tell ourselves the truth, only then can we have a chance at finally reaching some form of perfection, as unattainable as it may be.