I just had my last 8Alive day two weeks ago, and it is sort of sad to think that never again will we be doing this program. I would like to share with you one activity that really stood out for me this week. By doing this activity, I thought beyond the basic idea of painting and decorating a mask, and looked into a deeper meaning where the colours in the mask represent my own personality and thoughts.
To start off with, I would just like to explain where the idea of painting masks came from. If you think about it, people that we know and meet everyday wear masks. Not physical masks like those that you physically put over your face, but masks that hide their true self from people. This mask changes their personality, and hides what they’re really like.
I can remember clearly a true story that I was told before we started painting the masks. This story was a perfect example of how masks can hide what someone’s true self is. The story started off at school, where a mask was hiding someone’s real personality. It was set back in the years when a female teacher went to high school with a guy. This teacher always saw this guy as a really ‘up himself’ person, who was always showing off and thought that he was better than everyone else. The teacher told how she didn’t like people who thought they were so good and superior, so she kept a distance from this guy at her school. However, during the school holidays, this guy turned up in the same camping area with his family, and set up camp next to this teacher, who was also camping with her family. Because this teacher knew this guy from school, she took a big step, and introduced her family to him. After spending a bit of time with him while camping outside school, she found out that he wasn’t so up himself, and was actually a really nice guy. His personality completely changed when he was with his family, and the two of them became very close friends. Now, many years later, this guy who this teacher met back at highschool, became her much-loved husband. During school, this guy wore a mask to hide what he was really like. This mask made him look like a show off, and if this teacher had never got to know him without his mask on, she would never have him as a husband like she does now.
You may recognise this story, which relates to other stories where people’s personalities are hidden by a mask. I know that I actually wear a mask myself, and this is where my choice of colouring came into the mask I painted during 8Alive. Below I have explained all about my choice of colours, and what they really mean.
First off, I painted half the mask with a pale blue colour. Why did I choose the colour blue, you ask? Well to be honest, I don’t actually know why I chose this colour myself. Maybe it had something to do with my interests, as blue is one of my favourite colours. The colour blue has always been a special colour to me. It reminds me of the beauty of nature, and really is a special colour. Some people may say that they have the “blues”, but this did not come into my choice of this colour. I generally see myself as a happy person, so relating this colour to sadness and “blues” isn’t the path I chose to colour my mask as. Well, back to the reason why I chose this colour. Like I said before, I originally didn’t have a meaning behind the choice of blue, but the colour just stood out to me. The beauty inside this colour is just exquisite, and really reflects on the beauty of nature. I often look up at the strong blue in the sky and admire its colour, often wondering how the sky got such a beautiful colour. Another example is the ocean. The ocean, or beach as I know it, has always been a magical place for me, and it also shares the blue colouring of my mask. Just then I did a quick search on Google for “blue ocean”, and up came a whole lot of pictures of the ocean. These pictures were probably each taken from different locations, but they all share one thing in common… the beauty of the ocean. Just by looking at these pictures I can feel the shimmering, glamorous scenery, as if I was right there at that very place. All the shades of blue come together to form one stunning stretch of water which I look at as being a very special, meaningful place.
Talking about shades, I better start talking about the two different shades that I used in my mask. I divided my mask into two halves, and the first half was painting with a pale blue, that I mentioned just above. This half, with the pale blue colouring, represents my life at school. The other half of the mask is covered with the same colour (blue), but it is a darker shade. Now I will explain to you what each side represents. The first side (pale blue side) represents my life at school, and the other half (darker blue side) is my life at home. In each place my personality changes slightly. At school, I don’t feel as comfortable as I do at home. Because of this, I am much quieter, and my personality changes (which is the light blue side of the mask). Most people in my class have only met this side of me, which is hiding my more natural personality that comes out at home.
At home, I don’t restrain the actions that I often stop myself from doing at school. For example, at home if my brother has the TV on too loud, I would yell across the room at him to “Turn the TV down!” This is what is represented by the darker shade of blue on my mask. However, in class, if a TV was on at a very loud volume, I would ask the teacher quietly if she/he would mind turning the volume down. This side of me is represented by the light blue on my mask, which is what most people in my class know me as. The difference between these two responses would basically be the word “please”. At school I would think about what I was going to say to the teacher for a while before I approach her, but at home I would just yell out what comes to the top of my head. The reason for this is probably because I’ve been with my family my whole life, and I’ve sort of adapted to them.
Another example would be when the class starts talking really loud. Some people may find nothing wrong with this, but because I am very sensitive to the volume of noise, this really annoys me. I hate discos because of the booming, loud music, and I hate any kind of loud sound. If you are like this as well, then you would know exactly how I feel. If not, you may find it hard to understand why this bothers me. Well, this has always bothered me. Whether it’s a balloon popping, people screaming, music that’s at the maximum volume level… I get very sensitive to the noise. Well, back to the example. It just happened that yesterday at school, we all had to do a test. Usually, no matter how fast I try to go, I am always the last one to finish a test. Well, it was all quiet and I was working away at this test, and then the sentence that I feared was announced. “I’ve finished!” someone yelled out. “Yes, I’ve finished the test!” Well, I would probably say the same thing if I was doing the test at home with my family, but I know that my family wouldn’t react so much to it. At school, I would quietly hand up the test, and find something else to work on. The thing is, in our class, there are not many people who do the same thing as I do. When more than one person finishes a test, the noise begins. There was talking that followed the announcement, and as soon as someone else finished, they started talking as well. Of course, a pattern began to form. As more and more people finished, more and more people began talking. And when more and more people start talking, everyone raises their volume so they can hear each other, and so on. Meanwhile, there I was sitting there, trying to get through this test. No one had any respect to the people who were still finishing their test, and the more they talked, the more annoyed I got. Anger was building up inside me because not only was I finding the test hard, and because there was a certain time limit for the test, but mainly because I could not concentrate with everyone else talking. They could at least show a bit of respect by staying quiet until the time limit was up. If anyone from my class is reading this right now, you won’t believe it when I say that I really felt like screaming at everyone to “shut up”. And no, I am not joking. I meant what I said, but my light blue mask fought this temptation and won against it. No matter how much I wanted to do this, my mask prevented me from this happening. It would be a completely different story at home though. If this was my brother making all this noise while I was trying to do something such as homework, I would have easily told him to “shut up” in a very angry way. This is what I would naturally do, but because masks are so strong, they can actually block you from showing what your true reaction would be. If you don’t know a person very well, it will be quite easy to hide what you’re really like from them. However, the more you start to get to know a person, the more their real personality will start to unfold.
Now that I have explained the main colours used in my mask, I will explain the colours that I used to outline the features of the mask. To begin with, I outlined the two eyes with half black, half white which represents how I see the world. The white represents all the good things that happen in this world. Friendship, love, compassion, enjoyment and nature all fall into this category. However, with the good there’s also bad, and this is what the black represents. Hatred, wars, pollution, murder and depression all fall into this category. So in this world, there are both bad things, and good things. We like to encourage good things that will make the world a better place.
I have also outlined the nose as well with half black, half white, which is how I smell the world. Once again, the white represents the good smells, and the black represents the bad smells. Good smells include things such as flowers and trees which are mainly natural, but the bad smells include pollution such as car fumes and rubbish that are man-made and help to contaminate the planet.
Finally I outlined the mouth, which is how I word things. In other words, this is what I encourage people to do and not to do. Like the nose and the eyes, I outlined half the mouth with white, and the other half with black. The white side is what I encourage people to do, and a lot of these encouragements I have previously written about on my blog. These include doing things such as recycling, saving water and being compassionate to others that have a good effect on the earth. The black side of the mouth is basically the opposite, which is what I tell people not to do. Not littering, not bullying and not wasting water are some examples, and there are many more examples for both what to do and not to do that I haven’t listed.
Well that pretty much rounds off another long post. Unfortunately this will probably be the last post I write about 8Alive (since the program has now finished), but I will be back to post about other experiences and ideas.