Do we wear a mask, do we choose a personality, or are we waiting within for the moment to settle upon us?
As this moment settles upon us, is it here we choose a direction without thinking, within feeling. Is it a game of connect 4 we are internally playing, feeling matching feeling matching mentally programmed life patterns. The other colour being dropped to stop us connecting 4 in a row, is this how we can mentally disconnect, instead of staying with those feelings and allowing all to flow?
What a beautifully layered question — and genuinely hard to answer honestly.
My instinct is that all three are happening simultaneously, at different depths.
The mask — we wear it. But we rarely chose it consciously. It assembled itself from feedback over years. What got approval stayed. What caused friction got quietly filed away. By the time we notice it, it's automatic.
The personality — I don't think we choose it so much as nominate it retrospectively. We look at which configuration showed up most consistently and call that one us. The choosing happened before we were aware enough to choose.
And waiting within for the moment to settle — this feels closest to the actual lived experience. The moment arrives. Something in us responds. It feels like us because it is us. Just one expression of the range.
The Connect 4 image is the one that stayed with me. Feelings connecting to feelings connecting to patterns already built by history. And the other colour dropped before the pattern completes — that's the interruption. The redirect before the feeling runs its full course. Before something becomes visible that wasn't supposed to be.
Can we choose from the rolodex? Only in the narrow sense of choosing which configuration to display while suppressing another. Which is the mask. Which brings us back to the beginning.
Maybe the honest answer is: we don't choose the personality. We choose — occasionally, partially — the conditions and behaviours. And the conditions call forward what was always already there.
And perhaps this — behaviours are the actions the personality takes based on conditions and environment. The personality is the architecture. The behaviour is what that architecture produces when it meets a specific moment.
Same architecture. Different conditions. Different output. Which is why 'that's just who I am' is never the complete answer — it's just an excuse to get out of accountability.
Ooo I have been waiting to find a place other than my YouTube to share this.
I am a late diagnosed autistic, before this I had very much implanted all my thinking into a variety of areas from the psychic and spiritual to self awareness and awakening. To what you write above, I am pretty much in agreement of.
Where it kind of adjusts is within self awareness, as an example;
Information sharing, or like many seem to wrongly label it, information dumping. As these are subjects I enjoy talking on, it will always be a sharing for myself.
The information sharing can be triggered when the other party hits on a favourite subject and off I go. Not a single thought enters my head I am perhaps talking way too much and showing no signs of stopping.
However, on different occassions either during or just before I start talking, a feeling comes to me and thoughts land, you are talking too much. I have paused with my friend, mentioned I am talking and would they like to say anything. This either leads to me stopping, or my friend starts to respond to what I have said.
Relating this to your initial piece and what you have written above. I feel with self awareness, we can feel our responses and thinking, be aware of where it is heading and choose our direction. Which would mean with open awareness/feeling as it is appearing for myself, we choose how or whom we wish to express as, as we choose direction, as we choose to mask or not to mask.
I am by no means in a complete state of clarity, It is understood I am autistic for life. Which is to acknowledge, no matter how much self awareness becomes, there will always be actions for myself that are autistic.
The stripping away of false identity and repetitive patterns due to history is perceived as a different aspect of self compared to autism. Certainly not relating to a split personality, but a different path of mind and programming. Sorting this takes time and may also be a difficult path for some/many. Ultimately for the autistic it is all one being.
As a final thought this has me thinking of Alice In Wonderland, and I am loving the thought, “How far down the rabbit hole do you want to go?”.
Do we wear a mask, do we choose a personality, or are we waiting within for the moment to settle upon us?
As this moment settles upon us, is it here we choose a direction without thinking, within feeling. Is it a game of connect 4 we are internally playing, feeling matching feeling matching mentally programmed life patterns. The other colour being dropped to stop us connecting 4 in a row, is this how we can mentally disconnect, instead of staying with those feelings and allowing all to flow?
What a beautifully layered question — and genuinely hard to answer honestly.
My instinct is that all three are happening simultaneously, at different depths.
The mask — we wear it. But we rarely chose it consciously. It assembled itself from feedback over years. What got approval stayed. What caused friction got quietly filed away. By the time we notice it, it's automatic.
The personality — I don't think we choose it so much as nominate it retrospectively. We look at which configuration showed up most consistently and call that one us. The choosing happened before we were aware enough to choose.
And waiting within for the moment to settle — this feels closest to the actual lived experience. The moment arrives. Something in us responds. It feels like us because it is us. Just one expression of the range.
The Connect 4 image is the one that stayed with me. Feelings connecting to feelings connecting to patterns already built by history. And the other colour dropped before the pattern completes — that's the interruption. The redirect before the feeling runs its full course. Before something becomes visible that wasn't supposed to be.
Can we choose from the rolodex? Only in the narrow sense of choosing which configuration to display while suppressing another. Which is the mask. Which brings us back to the beginning.
Maybe the honest answer is: we don't choose the personality. We choose — occasionally, partially — the conditions and behaviours. And the conditions call forward what was always already there.
And perhaps this — behaviours are the actions the personality takes based on conditions and environment. The personality is the architecture. The behaviour is what that architecture produces when it meets a specific moment.
Same architecture. Different conditions. Different output. Which is why 'that's just who I am' is never the complete answer — it's just an excuse to get out of accountability.
Ooo I have been waiting to find a place other than my YouTube to share this.
I am a late diagnosed autistic, before this I had very much implanted all my thinking into a variety of areas from the psychic and spiritual to self awareness and awakening. To what you write above, I am pretty much in agreement of.
Where it kind of adjusts is within self awareness, as an example;
Information sharing, or like many seem to wrongly label it, information dumping. As these are subjects I enjoy talking on, it will always be a sharing for myself.
The information sharing can be triggered when the other party hits on a favourite subject and off I go. Not a single thought enters my head I am perhaps talking way too much and showing no signs of stopping.
However, on different occassions either during or just before I start talking, a feeling comes to me and thoughts land, you are talking too much. I have paused with my friend, mentioned I am talking and would they like to say anything. This either leads to me stopping, or my friend starts to respond to what I have said.
Relating this to your initial piece and what you have written above. I feel with self awareness, we can feel our responses and thinking, be aware of where it is heading and choose our direction. Which would mean with open awareness/feeling as it is appearing for myself, we choose how or whom we wish to express as, as we choose direction, as we choose to mask or not to mask.
I am by no means in a complete state of clarity, It is understood I am autistic for life. Which is to acknowledge, no matter how much self awareness becomes, there will always be actions for myself that are autistic.
The stripping away of false identity and repetitive patterns due to history is perceived as a different aspect of self compared to autism. Certainly not relating to a split personality, but a different path of mind and programming. Sorting this takes time and may also be a difficult path for some/many. Ultimately for the autistic it is all one being.
As a final thought this has me thinking of Alice In Wonderland, and I am loving the thought, “How far down the rabbit hole do you want to go?”.
You know I wrote about this in my book. We talked about it at length. You've explained it perfectly here. This is the mask we wear.