The Comedian's Mask

                  My entire life I have been uncomfortably aware that I was different.  I could not understand how to enter into conversations that were happening around me, even when I was standing in the circle.  I understood what people were saying, but it was not clear why they spent so much time talking about the subjects that were interesting to them.  To me it was as if they were to spend countless hours talking about the weather.  It was repetitive, boring, and curiously callous.  Yet I still felt left out and wanted to be part of things.  At first, my attempts were hopelessly erratic.  My efforts to make a connection were felt to be awkward, embarrassing or downright creepy.  I am still uncertain how much of this is how others saw me, and how much this is how I came to see myself. 

                  After several decades of dedicated practice, I now feel fairly confident in my ability to have conversations with people, without being very afraid that I will be seen as weird, defective, and possibly dangerous.  Yet every encounter is a performance.  I was speaking with someone the other day who is a professional comedian.  This suggested to me a good analogy.  While his jokes and stories seem spontaneous and effortless, the truth is that each word is scripted, tested, polished, and refined.  Then, when he has what he thinks is good material, he performs it several times a week, sometimes multiple times a day, for months.  So much for spontaneity!  Just so, each word I say in normal conversation is actually quite scripted.  If it sounds otherwise, it is proof of a skillfulness acquired at some cost.  But when he tells a joke, he never really knows how it will land, even if it has gone well in the past.  Just so, I can never really be sure how my own utterances in social situations will land.  This is a source of no small amount of anxiety. 

                  I have a good ear for music, and am highly empathetic, so I have learned the deep correlations between tone of voice and emotional experience.  I pay attention to body language and eye movement.  Since my own sense of self is so unstable, it is very easy for me to empathize with both sides of any argument I overhear, or get involved in.  In case you had not noticed by now, I take some pride in my accomplishments.  But perhaps it is also clear at this point that the process is both effortful, and draining.  Especially when you consider that the masking here described is not only pervasive in social and work situations, but even when I am alone! 

                  I have realized that much of my self-talk, the continual steam of language in my head, is actually a preparation and rehearsal for conversation with others.  I am continually testing out material in my mind, evaluating and judging whether it is A) an honest representation of my actual feelings B) decipherable to others, and C) expressed in ways that are aesthetically and intuitively accessible.  I try to use lots of analogies and examples.  I inflect my voice, even in my own head.  As long as I have time to think about what I want to say, or already have a script ready to go, I appear (I used to believe) normal.  I recognize now that I never entirely passed as normal, despite my somewhat arrogant belief that I did. 

                  Not all thought is preparatory self-talk.  I have heard that some people have no internal monologue at all.  And even for those of us who do, not all of that self-talk is ultimately for the benefit of fitting in.  Yet there is an art and a process to speaking in one’s mind that is contrived and explicit, no matter how habitual; and which may be started and ended by choice.  The choice to pursue and continue such self-talk is certainly.  It is also calorie and labor-intensive to the point that many of us arrive, sooner or later, at the point of total burn-out, a more or less debilitating emotional state wherein meeting the demands of social and public life is nearly impossible.  Now, I am not assuming that this constant internal performance is shared by all or even most neurodivergent people, or that it is the only or primary cause of burn-out.  I am simply describing an aspect of how my mind works that is common enough, and has some interesting implications for the nature of mind in general. 

Masking, by definition, is an unconscious activity.  What we experience as the world, or as ourselves, is in large part structured by the masks we wear.  We don’t ever consciously choose to mask in one way or another.  But we can observe it.  And with practice and some discipline, we can let the masks fall.  It really is just like all the extra tension we carry in our neck, shoulders and pelvic region.  We don’t intend to keep those muscles tensed up all the time.  But relaxing them, and leaving them relaxed when we don’t actually need them, takes a very specific kind of mindfulness.  If there is a benefit to unmasking, maybe it would be this: the benefit of knowing yourself, authentically.  Who is it that wears the masks? And why just these masks, instead of others?  And yet, it would appear that unmasking can’t be a practice, because it can’t be formulated as a mask.  Or if there is a mask of unmasking, that one’s going to have to go as well!  We should instead say: unmasking is a space to be occupied, a road to be walked, rather than a recipe to follow.