The Many Faced Men
A few days ago I was talking with a friend of mine; we were talking about everything and nothing at the same time. At one moment he received a call and suddenly his whole accent changed to a lofty way of speaking, his body language changed from casual to someone majestic.
What the hell happened here?!?! It looks liked he was possessed by a distinguished ghost or something.
Few second ago he was telling me how F***in dope that shit was. And now he’s stating how magnificent things were and how tremendously he felt about it.
So I observed and realized that I’ve been doing the same all my life.
But never really took a moment to think about it and also to understand how I can improve and use this for the better.
The statement I’ve come up with is: Everybody is just an actor or actress. The most skilled actor/actress gets the most awards (achievements). Therefor you have to put on the right face.
OK, this is quite a statement, but let me explain myself. I will go through 3 common levels. There are many more levels, however just to give you an idea.
The Street level:
I grew up in Bijlmer, Amsterdam which uses to be considered as the Ghetto of the Netherlands, ok maybe that’s a bit strange to say. The slums of Amsterdam, the Backstreet district, the hood. Whatever you want to call it. Nowadays the government has made a corporate area out of it and everybody moved to where I live now. But that’s another story.
To be someone in the disadvantaged neighborhoods you can’t come at school or walk on the street and come with overly sophisticated manners and lofty ways of speaking. That is dangerous you can get yourself a horrible life. You’ll be a Gazelle in a Safari full of predators. I’m talking Lions, Jaguars, Crocodiles and Giant Sharks which can walk on land. You’ll be breakfast, lunch, and dinner!
So you adapt you act like the gross of people, you speak whatever slang there is to speak, you wear the clothes which fit that image. You level with your environment. If your parents did not understand this principle, you were screwed, so if parents are reading this. Don’t be ignorant! Let your child be whatever he or she is acting like. There is always a reason; try to figure out that reason, instead of being judgmental about it.
This level contains everything from encountering with just someone standing in line before the cash register till a acquaintance you meet at the gym. It is the face you put on walking on the street and how you are recognizable by the unknown, the people you know just by face and the acquaintances
But “The Street level “ is much more, It’s also where people talk very informal or using some kind of substandard language, have diverse (mostly by music influential) styles, such as Hip-hop styles, Punk, Rock styles or whatever style. You will see this style back in the way they’re talking, the way they’re wearing clothes, the way they’re thinking.The different norms and values show there is a great variety of cultures and differences in background.
The Street level face can be a great mask, by putting your street face on it will hide information like what kind of job you are having, what family you come from, your religion, you politician preference, what kind of person you are in life.
However it will show people which are observing you just right enough, to show how they truly are their selves. And that’s mostly judgmental.
The Business level
After highs school, I’ve tried some educations because most people told me I need to have a diploma and finish school to be successful. I found out pretty quickly that’s just ignorance. The questions I always asked myself was but what if I finish it and it points out to be just a waste of time? At an age between 15 and 20 you want me to decide what I want to be for the rest of my life? I don’t even know what the world has to offer! I’ve just figured out that I like girls and hanging out with friends! Alright let’s just pick an education with nice girls and where my friends are going, GREAT!!
Well this didn’t really work out of course, so I stopped and reassessed myself.
I decided to just have a job, didn’t matter what kind of job. I just replied on any vacancy I didn’t care. I’ve worked in a Supermarket, Fast-food restaurants, as a Host for events, in the Hotel and catering business, at a Bar, in the Club, as a Marketer, a promoter aaandd ….. STOP, something was wrong. I had so many jobs, but why did I do all these things? Just for the money? Yes I’ve learned and earned a lot, but I still liked girls though and I’m really not good in starting conversations and I always got shy when people talking with me, this was not good. So finally I started to try working as a street fundraiser for different charities. I quickly learned that Sales is my kind of thing, I decided to go back to school learn Marketing and Communication and exploit my sales knowledge and skills. So here I am 12 years further and have a nice view of the Business face.
The Business level face could be quite difficult to maintain as you sometimes throw in your Street level face or any other face.
When you throw in a different face in the Business level, 2 things could happen.
- You will expose yourself
- The opposite can relate and will expose itself. This could be good for you or bad 50/50, so be careful.
In the business level people have a formal (or a pretty formal) way of speaking. There is minimal room for personal and emotional expression. There are many books and processes about how to handle and act when on the work floor or how to optimize your position. On the business level many norm and values are already written and decided when signing the work agreement. I find this level quite clear, as many ethics are known.
I think the business level face is quite interesting actually; because it’s a whole other level itself. This is the level where most people change the way they normally dress, change the way the normally would talk, change the way they would think and even are much more tolerable. Not always, but at least they act like tolerable. For example when your manager is telling you to do a shitty task, you will probably do it or trying to not do it but stay polite while explaining why you won’t do it. If your mum or wife asks you to do a shitty task, you will mostly just get angry, maybe yell a bit at least you will do a lot of complaining before doing it. And that is whole different face.
The Family & Friends Level
I come from a big family I have 5 siblings. My grandparents have in total 10 children. My grandparents their parents had in total at least 40 children. So you can imagine I don’t know every family member.
I also have had many friends, most of my friends I consider as family. So I’m a very rich guy with many family and friends. I consider myself as a blessed person surrounded with Love and Happiness. But yeah, the bigger the circle of Family & Friends is, the bigger the chances to frustrations and irritations.
And there is very valid reason for this!
The Family & Friends level is the level where you feel most comfortable; you can act crazy and express any feeling without being judged. At least we think we are not being judged. And this is where the frustrations and irritations starts.
Quite frankly we are assuming that everything we say and do is just understandable, we are above all Family & Friends. We know each other in and out, so we must be able to read each other’s mind and have a telepathic ability to understand! Well unfortunately this isn’t the case.
The Family & Friends face is where you put off any mask you wear and have a butt naked face. Well this is wrong also because it’s still a face you put on. Even though it doesn’t feel like it and you can be yourself most of the time it’s still something we should be aware of.
I consider the Family & Friends level as pretty complex. It’s a level where you can practice all faces you wear throughout your life.
This is a level where Love and Hate is so close to each other. One moment you hate and one moment you Love. One moment you laugh and one moment you cry. One moment you feel like you want them out of your life and one moment you can’t live without them.
So it’s pretty clear this is quite complex. But that makes it beautiful at the same time.
Be grateful with this face, this face will be remembered forever. So I would advise to be cautions how you act wearing this face.It’s maybe the most important act throughout your entire Life Movie.
The awards you achieve here are more worth then the Golden Oscars.
The Many Faced Men has more faces.
I’m aware there are a lot more faces, I’ve divided it up to 3 different ones but in fact it’s much more. You could wright whole books about it and go much more in depth about the happy, sad, aggressive, insecure faces. Or the manipulative, the ambitious, the jealous face. Or about the professional and the amateur face. And probably there are already books about it.
One way of considering living life is to be aware the face you put on when you present yourself to the world. You will play throughout your life in different scenes, movies, TV show series and more. All these plays have different stages as the intro, the plot, climaxes and ending. And every time you have another role.
Meaning you have many faces however this doesn’t mean, you are trying to be someone else or can not be yourself. In this article solely means that we have to be aware which face we put to succeed in what we are trying to achieve.
Be aware of the face you put on, the act needs to be in line with what we are trying to receive from the world — Anthony Syams
Thank you for reading this article, I hope you enjoyed reading ! I write mostly straight from the heart about my observations and experiences which I would like to share. I’m convinced there will be someone somewhere who can do their benefit out of it. Greetings from Amsterdam, Yours truly, Anthony Syams…….. follow me on instagram: @anthoffical_anthelligence
