ThaOthaBrotha? Who's That?

So I'm sitting here looking at 50 Cent's movie "Get Rich or Die Tryin" and there's a scene where 50 is riding in his new car. He looks over into the rear-view mirror and starts practing his gangsta speak. "Who the fuck you lookin at?" "Get the fuck out of my car!" First it made me really nostalgic, because I remember looking in the mirror and talking to myself. I remember singing in the mirror. I remember practicing my romantic lines. I remember posing. And it really made me think about the faces we put on.

I mean, it's part of life to have many masks. You can't logically be the same guy at work as you are with your significant other. And it doesn't make sense to interact with your children in the same manner that you interact with your buddies from college. It's just a matter of appropriate behavior. But what about constructed identities? And, more importantly, what happens when we can no longer tell the difference between who we are and who we have constructed?

One of my boys is a very attractive guy (as tends to be the case). From our dealings, I've always thought he was emotionally void due to his past relationships with guys and therefore less apt to get hurt in any dealings he does have with them (compounded with the power he wields by being as attractive as he is). However, recently, he tells me that the cold face is just a facade and that he is actually very sensitive and emotional. He just puts on the cold face to protect himself. But yo, how is it that I've known the guyf or 4 years and that's the only face I've ever seen. Mind you, I'm not his type so he didn't give me the cold face to protect himself. yet that's the only person I knew.

On a somewhat similar note, I have always prided myself on being nice. I know that so many people in th world are mean and unabashedly so. So I was very happy to be different and was very proud to be nicer than most other people. however, nice people often get trampled over, so I developed a very cutting sarcsem and wit to protect myself. And, of course, I honed it over time, becoming increasingly proficient at cutting to the heart of people with my words. So I was talking with some friends my sophomore year of college and I said, "yeah, I'm a real nice guy, " and they laughed. They laughed hard, inf act. They couldn't believe that I formed my lips to even say that. Then they went so far as to say that I was the meanest of the entire group. Now it seemed that the personality component that I had developed as protection had become a very permanent part of who I was and I didn't even know it. Talk about a shock.

Usually I can end these mental rants with some sort of closing statment or moral to the story, but I don't even know this time. I guess I'll have to give it more thought.