Face In The Crowd

“Reality is like a face reflected in the blade of a knife; its properties depend on the angle from which we view it.”
-Master Hsing Yun, “Describing the Indescribable”

When asked if he was happy, Garrison Keillor stated, “I have a cheerful heart but not a cheerful demeanor.” The problem with this is if you can’t see a warm inviting smile on a person it requires a little more faith on your part to see a smile in the heart. I too share this dilemma of a lack of facial expressions thus creating a sense that I am either disconcerted or aloof. But my frozen face comes by way of Mr. Parkinson.

An abundance of dopamine can put on a smile, the lack of it leaves a blank expressionless void. As Parkinson’s’ controls your muscle it can reduce automatic facial movements. Look at me and you will see a solemn face, it may look angry or like I’m sulking or in deep thought. But it’s just a face, a form given to me. An image I’m at fault to have fostered with a continuous array of mask.

We read too much of what is on the outside of the form we inhabit. One must look within and what’s within may surprise you. And how do you find what is within? My method of sailing these waters is the written word; for others, it’s music or painting. But to find the jeweled point you’ve got to dig for the source, the energizing principle, the fire in the mind.

But still, the face can be a problem. Sure a cheerless demeanor may serve us well for a social cause, political rally or a somber occasion. But not in joyful situations. It doesn’t display contentment. It is not ecstatic or jovial, one needs a certain type of face for those and the personality to go with it. If I’m on cloud nine, I still look like I’m on cloud one. You see it all the time; someone looks like they had to have a smile painted on or pried open with a crowbar. I guess in the end it’s just easier to read a smiling happy face for it doesn’t matter the cause, it’s happy and you can always get along with that. But any other type and you enter a puzzle and people don’t often like puzzles of this sort.

My face is not a reflection of my heart which is joyful, which reads of my soul, which is always evaluating, pushing me to be the best, bidding me to think positive thoughts. My face, if it reflects anything is an image of the stillpoint deep within, that stillpoint in each of us that is completely one with all others.

©jc2017-9

*Image Pixabay