Human behaviour is a really complex thing. I guess that’s bound to happen when there are so many of us, each different to the other in a multitude of ways and all of us forming a web of interaction.
There are many layers to any person as he or she is a sum total of their nature, preferences, personalities, attitude, view towards life, upbringing, dreams and aspirations, emotions, and so much more.
It is really difficult to understand someone completely. That’s why I respect psychologists, who make it seem so easy. But still, even they do not get it right all the time. Such is the complexity of our behaviour.
I guess, it has to do with the way we behave differently according to the people and circumstances we are exposed to. In fact, a Jesuit missionary wrote about his observation of the Japanese that they have three faces, that I think may actually apply to all of humanity. Let’s talk about the three faces.
The Face You Show To The World
We come across thousands of people in our lives. A majority of these people, we meet only briefly and then we take our separate paths. In a way, they are the tourists in our lives.
Our interaction with these people is different to how we may interact with the more important people in our lives. I am not saying that we are rude with these kinds of people but there sure are differences.
I mean you wouldn’t completely trust the word of a stranger like you might your best friends’, right? Our expressions, our reactions and the way we behave with such fleeting shadows in our lives are quite different.
And that’s the first face we all carry. The mask that we put on according to what we think is culturally and socially acceptable and the one that we remove as soon as we step inside the home. The longer we have this on, the more exhausting it is.
The Face You Show To Family & Friends
We all have these special people in our lives whom we care for a lot. There is the family consisting of your parents, your spouse, siblings, children for whom you would do anything.
Then you have your best friends. These are like your second family and while these two groups of people are separate from each other, and may form separate spheres of life, the behaviour or the ‘face’ is quite similar.
You have a good time whenever you are with them, you can tell them anything and can be more ‘yourself’ when you are with them. Also, these are the people you seek when you are in trouble and they literally form your support structure in life.
You also do the same for them. Basically, you enter a caring and loving mode for these people in your life and this shows in your behaviour. Even here, it differs from one person to another. Yes, we can all care but showing that care can be done in a thousand different ways.
The Face You Never Show Anyone
No matter who you are as a person. No matter in which stage of life you are. You will always want to spend some time alone, doing absolutely nothing. There is something about solitude that is so alluring.
During times like these, the truest reflection of our ’self’ comes out. Basically, this is the part of us that we keep hidden from all of the world and it only comes out when nobody’s watching.
This is the all knowing face, your soul, the core of your self or whatever else you might want to call it. This is the ‘real’ voice calling from the back of your mind when you are busy putting on the first or the second face.
This is the face that makes you feel guilty when your first face is being nice to your boss just because you want a promotion and this is the face that cries silently when your second face is busy smiling in front of your loved ones telling them you are fine.
While some things will always be kept in the privacy of one's own mind, I think it is a noble goal to try one's best to only have one face. I've actually paid a fair amount of attention to this over the past couple of years, to be mindful of when I feel that I am not speaking with someone's "inner face" but only interacting with their outer face. It is very common, indeed very human, but it's not the conversation that I want to have. Bringing my inner face to the surface has also made me a whole lot more relaxed. I speak my mind and do not spend energy and effort thinking of how it needs to be filtered for the outside world to accept it. If they like it, good. If not, too bad. Surely I may have turned off some people to whom I've been perhaps a little too direct with what I think and what I believe. For the rest, however, I've found that it helps enhance and deepen the relationship with the person. And in the end, it is the number of good relationships that are worth counting in the end.
WOW!!!! Well said man, well said!!! I totally agree with every single word. Especially the part where you said that it makes you more relaxed when you bring out the inner face to the surface as you don't have to spend energy thinking. Wow.
Someone said when you do not lie you do not have to remember anything. I think you hit on it with keeping that true self out in the light but in can only come out once you have integrated your shadow self as Jung would say. And you seem to have done that. Otherwise to deny it, it would only fester and grow. Well said.
wow! Really great article. I think this is one of my favorites of yours. I agree, I feel like we are like onions, with many layers. We are all the same at the core, but what we choose to show other people depends on how close they are to us. The casual tourist encounters are what people see of the onion that has it's shell on. The white part of the onion is what we reveal to our friends and family depending on the level of trust and relationship.
I also believe that different people bring out different sides of us... maybe because that is what we want to present to them or want them to think about us. It's almost like where are multiple people in one!
First of all, thanks for the kind words. Really means a lot :)
Second, you gave a perfect example of what I was trying to describe!! I will upvote this comment so that this is the first thing people read to further understand my point of view. Really well done :)
awww! :) Glad you enjoyed my analogy! :)
also I just posted a blog about this contemporary dance I performed, and the dance was actually very similar to the topic of your blog. It's about how we are all the same deep down, but we don't seem to notice, because we are all off doing are own things. :)
Could also be interpreted differently.
ok will check it out.
great post!! an extremely interesting article 🤔
I think these 3 faces - face for world, face for loved ones and face for yourself have more divisons..
yeah, definitely can have more sub divisions.
Very Nice Post ; Voted and followed you. I want to learn from your experience on steemit.com. So kindly see my posts and vote me and follow me. As we can see our future posts. Thank you @sauravrungta
Thanks!
yup i totally agree.. everyone has multiple faces...
nice post bhai...!!!
upvoted and followed...!!!
Thanks for reading man :)
I believe that thinking that people have three faces is better accurate. Each of us is behaving differently in different circumstances. That happens depending on the conditions on our mood or on what we had for breakfast. So basically your article is one hundred percent right. I would not be surprised if there are even more faces that each of us have such as in between the ones that have been listed here.
Yeah, I think there is room for more but these are the major ones. Thanks for the kind words :)
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I can see some truth to this, but for myself I like to think I have the same face that I reveal more of depending who you are, or what the situation is. Instead of 3 faces, more of the face is revealed.
That's an interesting way to look at it too :)
This describes my different faces. I think it has to do with the way humans are socialized. The dos and don't shapes each individual face. I like the way you have brought the points out.
Yeah, the dos and don'ts or the perceived etiquettes surely have a role to play. Thanks for the kind words :)
Yes , thats true. Nice writing.followed
Thank you :)
This made me realise a lot of things.
I am glad it did :)
Hmm, too many faces are not good
exactly!
Wow nice look & hot post
thanks :)
Actually their are 4 faces, the fourth face is your desire and envy, the that even you dont want to see. It the
I think that is well within the third face. Because that is just who you are. the desires included!
Very interesting read, I think that there is even more than that within each face. At least varying degrees of each face. Great post.
Yes, sub faces. Very possible. Thanks for reading :)
Some complex concepts you're looking at here. For me though, I think it's even more than three faces. Even when we are alone with our selves, we are forever conscious of the fact that we cannot see all of our self. The person we are with others can sometimes reveal what we can never admit to ourselves. The esteem we seek in the eyes of others is the missing leg of the shadow we don't see, the iceberg of self that hides behind our own eyes.
That's an interesting way to view it. Nice! :)
Compelling post 😊 This is a deeply complex area, but I like how well you depicted the general attributes of these different faces. Although I agree with you on the first two faces, I don't completely agree with the third one. For example, I do agree that we show a 'face' when we don't want others to see our vulnerability, but this is not the same as being two faced where a person is being nice to someone to reap something from them. This latter 'face' is what is referred to as being 'two-faced' and it's not a 'face' that everyone has. Similarly, the 'face' that we have when we are alone is not necessarily removed from our general face. Many people behave on their own as normally as they would if there was someone around, but I know that's not always the case. In fact, there's an interesting study from Zajonc (1965) about social facilitation and how people change in the presence of others.
Thanks for the kind words :) It's just the way I view things and therefore shared my views on it. They may be right or wrong and quite different from what other people think and that is completely fine :) Thanks for a wonderful comment.
My pleasure! I agree, it's different for everyone. And that's why it's nice to see different views that can relate to your own or make you consider another perspective. Keep it up :)
I followed upvoted and resteemed.Good post that makes you think.
Thank you :)
I am an anthropologist, human beings are very complex creatures.
Its Very interesting to learn about.
We sure are :)
That is an interesting way of seeing it. I actually never thought about it, but thi should be kind of true, I guess.
Yeah, just something I shared that was on my mind :)
good post,, very nice. keep it @sauravrungta
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Thanks!
la ambivalencia del humano es completamente real y hermosa podemos tener muchos rostros.
Very good post. The number of faces isn't limited to three, however, nor are they always called faces. Your post made me immediately think "The Score", an Album released by the Fugees in 1996. They sang a song called, "The Mask", which addresses exactly the issues you have written about. I highly recommend checking it out (great album too!).
Yeah, it might be more and faces may not even be the perfect term. Just the way I looked at this :)
there is something like 3 personality , that go's hand in hand with this article, 1) you have the person that you think you are, 2) there is the person that you really are, 3) and then you have how other people see you as person. The more difference between these 3 images, the less you are the person that you think you are to be. thanx for your post mate
Yeah, I read about this in business class in college. While they share similarities with the 3 faces, there are some differences as well.
I know it has some differences as wel as similarities , just wanted to mention that anyway :)
Love this post. It's very true that we only allow certain people to see us in certain ways. Nice work.
Yes, that's correct :)
the 3rd face is very debatable if you ask me, since most of humans are sociable creatures and don't get to be alone very often, which makes it harder to develop that 3rd face and get to know "ourselves" as we really are. Or looking from normal human life - line, you live with your parents till 18 or so, never alone and always focused on 2nd face during your teenage years. So really the question is, when does one acknowledge it's 3rd face, or do we all really develop one?
I think we can acknowledge it any time we want because that's who we really are. No need to be alone for that despite what I said. It's more of listening to the inner voice, I think.
I loved it...:) This is so very true
Thank you :)
Great article, typical human behavior. I would extend the list with “the face we don’t know”. I’ve met myself and tons of people, who were/are exploring themselves and their place in society, being conscious and mindful. So far seems to be that learning-period takes a whole lifetime, as we all learn in every day, hour, minute. And time controls everything.
we human consists of: desire, devine spirit. Desire and divine spirit compete each other.
Each person has his own reality which can always change :)
"The map is not the territory" . I dont think its a bad thing that people act differently in different situation, as humans we change and adapt!
I speak about it more in my NLP posts.
Me too brother. me too!