Masks With Inspirational Quotes

The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can't be any large-scale revolution until there's a personal revolution, on an individual level. It's got to happen inside first.

She seems so cool, so focused, so quiet, yet her eyes remain fixed upon the horizon. You think you know all there is to know about her immediately upon meeting her, but everything you think you know is wrong. Passion flows through her like a river of blood. She only looked away for a moment, and the mask slipped, and you fell. All your tomorrows start here.

To those who abuse: the sin is yours, the crime is yours, and the shame is yours. To those who protect the perpetrators: blaming the victims only masks the evil within, making you as guilty as those who abuse. Stand up for the innocent or go down with the rest.

Nothing is impossible to a determined woman.

Do not love half lovers Do not entertain half friends Do not indulge in works of the half talented Do not live half a life and do not die a half death If you choose silence, then be silent When you speak, do so until you are finished Do not silence yourself to say something And do not speak to be silent If you accept, then express it bluntly Do not mask it If you refuse then be clear about it for an ambiguous refusal is but a weak acceptance Do not accept half a solution Do not believe half truths Do not dream half a dream Do not fantasize about half hopes Half a drink will not quench your thirst Half a meal will not satiate your hunger Half the way will get you no where Half an idea will bear you no results Your other half is not the one you love It is you in another time yet in the same space It is you when you are not Half a life is a life you didn't live, A word you have not said A smile you postponed A love you have not had A friendship you did not know To reach and not arrive Work and not work Attend only to be absent What makes you a stranger to them closest to you and they strangers to you The half is a mere moment of inability but you are able for you are not half a being You are a whole that exists to live a life not half a life

To be inspired is great, but to inspire is an honor.

Vulnerability really means to be strong and secure enough within yourself that you are able to walk outside without your armor on. You are able to show up in life as just you. That is genuine strength and courage. Armor may look tough, but all it does is mask insecurity and fear.

Mister Dresden," he said. "And Miss Rodriguez, I believe. I didn't realize you were an art collector." "I am the foremost collector of velvet Elvii in the city of Chicago," I said at once. "Elvii?" Marcone inquired. "The plural could be Elvises, I guess," I said. "But if I say that too often, I start muttering to myself and calling things 'my precious,' so I usually go with the Latin plural.

The life that I have lived was no more than a mask covering the real me. What has happened was not to kill me but to reveal me.

It's good to see the snakes revealing themselves. They weren't actually hidden at all. People hide behind the masks, but eventually you see them for who they truly are.

There came a time in everyone’s life when they realized that in spite of how hard they’d been running from themselves, everywhere they went, there they were: Addictions and compulsions were nothing but marching bands of distraction, masking truths that were unpleasant, but ultimately undeniable.

I bare my nakedness to the world that the world may see who I am; not the mask that hides my flaws, not the mask that hides my beauty. I bask in the light and I take off the mask!

For a long while I have believed – this is perhaps my version of Sir Darius Xerxes Cama’s belief in a fourth function of outsideness – that in every generation there are a few souls, call them lucky or cursed, who are simply born not belonging, who come into the world semi-detached, if you like, without strong affiliation to family or location or nation or race; that there may even be millions, billions of such souls, as many non-belongers as belongers, perhaps; that, in sum, the phenomenon may be as “natural” a manifestation of human nature as its opposite, but one that has been mostly frustrated, throughout human history, by lack of opportunity. And not only by that: for those who value stability, who fear transience, uncertainly, change, have erected a powerful system of stigmas and taboos against rootlessness, that disruptive, anti-social force, so that we mostly conform, we pretend to be motivated by loyalties and solidarities we do not really feel, we hide our secret identities beneath the false skins of those identities which bear the belongers’ seal of approval. But the truth leaks out in our dreams; alone in our beds (because we are all alone at night, even if we do not sleep by ourselves), we soar, we fly, we flee. And in the waking dreams our societies permit, in our myths, our arts, our songs, we celebrate the non-belongers, the different ones, the outlaws, the freaks. What we forbid ourselves we pay good money to watch, in a playhouse or a movie theater, or to read about between the secret covers of a book. Our libraries, our palaces of entertainment tell the truth. The tramp, the assassin, the rebel, the thief, the mutant, the outcast, the delinquent, the devil, the sinner, the traveler, the gangster, the runner, the mask: if we did not recognize in them our least-fulfilled needs, we would not invent them over and over again, in every place, in every language, in every time.

Let's burn our masks at midnight and as flickering flames ascend, under the witness of star-clouds, let us vow to reclaim our true selves. Done with hiding and weary of lying, we'll reconcile without and within. Then, like naked squint-eyed newborns, we'll greet the glorious birth of dawn; blinking at the blazing, wondrous colors we somehow failed to notice before.

Tear off the mask. Your face is glorious.

It's a funny thing, how it works... The moment we stop trying so hard to be someone, we become ourselves--only what was there all along, waiting and peeking out from behind all the masks we wore. And when this happens, we discover that Who We Really Are is much greater than anything we might have pretended or even hoped to be.

The act of writing itself is much like the construction of a mirror made of words. Looking at certain illuminated corners of or cracks within the mirror, the author can see fragments of an objective reality that comprise the physical universe, social communities, political dynamics, and other facets of human existence. Looking in certain other corners of the same mirror, he or she may experience glimpses of a True Self sheltered deftly behind a mask of public proprieties.

Even when he was barely conscious, his strong personality came through. At one point the pulmonologist tried to put a mask over his face when he was sedated. Jobs ripped it off and mumbled that he hated the design and refused to wear it. He ordered them to bring five different options and he would pick the one he liked.

The tension of the soul in unhappiness, which cultivates its strength; its horror at the sight of the great destruction; its inventiveness and bravery in bearing, enduring, interpreting, exploiting unhappiness, and whatever in the way of depth, mystery, mask, spirit, cleverness, greatness the heart has been granted - has it not been granted them through suffering, through the discipline of great suffering?

Without wearing any mask we are conscious of, we have a special face for each friend

Volcanic ash will be experienced in all parts of your world, as the volcanoes around your earth are simultaneously activated. Face masks and goggles will be of great value

Trust is the thread that binds us... and the rope that hangs us.

When we know Love, fear has no value in our presence. There is no pressure to perform and mask our humanity. We can BE and when we BE. We can inspire others to BE.

Ironically, when we own the shadow aspects of our self and put down our masks - this is when we become truly lovable.

The true artist will let his wife starve, his children go barefoot, his mother drudge for his living at seventy, sooner than work at anything but his art. To women he is half vivisector, half vampire. He gets into intimate relations with them to study them, to strip the mask of convention from them, to surprise their inmost secrets, knowing that they have the power to rouse his deepest creative energies, to rescue him from his cold reason, to make him see visions and dream dreams, to inspire him, as he calls it. He persuades women that they may do this for their own purpose whilst he really means them to do it for his. He steals the mother’s milk and blackens it to make printer’s ink to scoff at her and glorify ideal women with. He pretends to spare her the pangs of child-bearing so that he may have for himself the tenderness and fostering that belong of right to her children. Since marriage began, the great artist has been known as a bad husband. But he is worse: he is a child-robber, a blood-sucker, a hypocrite, and a cheat. Perish the race and wither a thousand women if only the sacrifice of them enable him to act Hamlet better, to paint a finer picture, to write a deeper poem, a greater play, a profounder philosophy! For mark you, Tavy, the artist’s work is to shew us ourselves as we really are. Our minds are nothing but this knowledge of ourselves; and he who adds a jot to such knowledge creates new mind as surely as any woman creates new men. In the rage of that creation he is as ruthless as the woman, as dangerous to her as she to him, and as horribly fascinating. Of all human struggles there is none so treacherous and remorseless as the struggle between the artist man and the mother woman. Which shall use up the other? that is the issue between them. And it is all the deadlier because, in your romanticist cant, they love one another.

Stop wearing that mask that is trying to be a match for everybody, and realise that you have to have more of a 1s and 10s model. A 1s and 10s model means that if you want to be a 10 for somebody you have to risk being a 1 for somebody else. [...] You wanna express who you really are.

Who needs a face when the masks in life are endless?

Life will show you masks that are worth all your carnivals

Cause I'll know my weakness, know my voice. And I'll believe in grace and choice. And I know perhaps my heart is farce, But I'll be born without a mask.

The system wears a mask of civility, yet will quickly reveal its true nature in the form of magnificently-purposed violence when needed.

When your afraid of something you hide behind a mask. It might be to protect yourself, But if you hide long enough then you forget who you really are. You must come out.

The philosophies of men surround us. The face of sin today often wears the mask of tolerance. Do not be deceived; behind that facade is heartache, unhappiness, and pain. You know what is right and what is wrong, and no disguise, however appealing, can change that. Be the one to make a stand for right, even if you stand alone. Have the moral courage to be a light for others to follow.

Throughout their lifetime, most women learn to be uncomfortable with their physical appearance. They create a mask of makeup that is intended to “fix” their “imperfections.” They identify so much with this mask they reject their true beauty. Feminine Transitions encourages women to remove their masks and love their true selves, completely.

No self-respecting cat wants to have its subtle personal odor masked by overtones of lavender or rose petals.

I confess to the trees, priests of dreams.

I saw you there, In a dress of virgin white. Like an angel descended from heaven To be here amongst ordinary mortals. I saw you there, Your big, brown eyes. Like the moist soil after the rains Full of hope, courage & life. I saw you there Your dark hair, curly. Like the dark clouds trying vainly to mask The moons eternal beauty. I saw you there Inspiring hope and life. Like the rainbow that brings a smile after thunder Lighting and the dull grey sky. I saw you there and realised the purpose of this life. Like the firely loves the light, to love you for the rest of my life. I saw you there and met my true self. I never knew Love This was Love. Love at first sight.

So many of us hide from ourselves and we don't even know who we are and why were we here? All peoples will prove they are better and put fake masks on their own faces. Every people pretend herself what they actually not from inside. Afraid to show the reality and hide their best quality. You just have to learn to be yourself and what really makes you happy, or other things that are not important and what others think of you is not important at all.

Reject the fake life. Reject the life of the fraud. Reject the persona life, the masked life. Stop faking it. Stop living in bad faith. Shatter the false ceiling. Become who you are. Become authentic. Get active. Get real. Get going.

Neo-Freudian Karen Horney believed that childhood experiences resulted in our creation of a self that “moved toward people” or “moved away from people.” These tendencies were a sort of mask that could develop into neurosis if we were not willing to move beyond them. Underneath was what she called a “wholehearted,” or real, person.

I was just so afraid.... So afraid of being seen through, of being caught, that I missed the point. I missed the most important fact of it all, which is quite simply...they want to believe in you up there.... The audience wants to forget who's under the mask. But they don't want to forget because of obfuscation...no, they want to forget it's you by virtue of the passion of your performance. They want to be transported.... Transported to a world where bigger truths are at work, and anything--anything--can happen. A world where the impossible is possible. Batman can be someone like that for them, Bruce. Someone who defies every damn rule of logic that governs their lives.

The thing is, you're beautiful. Yes, you… In your wild, mundane glory. Your daily life hides from you the possibilities of why you’re here And who you are. But never forget that every breath you take is actual alchemy. With your eyes you record visions of this place. With your fingertips you read the bumps in life, Sending messages back from whence you came. You’re a soul traveler, An explorer. You make this place home for now; Trying on the costumes, Playing out your roles. Every so often, take off your masks. Drop your robes. See yourself reflected in the very mirror of your life. And remember… When you leave this stage, The only thing you will wonder is, “Did I love brilliantly?

In this world the mask is what is true.

There are many masks people wear on the outside to hide the hurt they are feeling on the inside.

It's not just a MASK it's a life saving TASK".

Life is spent hovering round our tomb. Our various sicknesses are but the winds which carry us more or less near to the haven. … Death is our friend, nevertheless we do not recognise it as such, because it presents itself to us under a mask, and that mask inspires us with terror.

Pick a man, any man. That man there. See him. That man hatless. You know his opinion of the world. You can read it in his face, in his stance. Yet his complaint that a man’s life is no bargain masks the actual case with him. Which is that men will not do as he wishes them to. Have never done, never will do. That’s the way of things with him and his life is so balked about by difficulty and become so altered of its intended architecture that he is little more than a walking hovel hardly fit to house the human spirit at all. Can he say, such a man, that there is no malign thing set against him? That there is no power and no force and no cause? What manner of heretic could doubt agency and claimant alike? Can he believe that the wreckage of his existence is unentailed? No liens, no creditors? That gods of vengeance and of compassion alike lie sleeping in their crypt and whether our cries are for an accounting or for the destruction of the ledgers altogether they must evoke only the same silence and that it is this silence which will prevail?

A thinking puppet is the mind of life: Its choice is the work of elemental strengths That know not their own birth and end and cause And glimpse not the immense intent they serve. In this nether life of man drab-hued and dull, Yet filled with poignant small ignoble things, The conscious Doll is pushed a hundred ways And feels the push but not the hands that drive. For none can see the masked ironic troupe To whom our figure-selves are marionettes, Our deeds unwitting movements in their grasp, Our passionate strife an entertainment’s scene.

I remember a time in a class on a cold winter morning a Japanese girl came with a surgical mask & I thought “wow people would go to extremes NOT to get sick in Japan” afterwards on a break I approached her & asked in a cynical manner: why the mask? Are you afraid of catching a cold? & then she said “in Japan you use it when YOU are under the weather & you don’t want other people to get sick, it is the polite thing to do” wow! that's a lesson I will never forget

You know, all poetry may be a cry of generalised love, for this, or that, or the universe - which must be loved in its particularity, not its generality, but for its universal life in every minute particular. I have always supposed it to be a cry of ;unsatisfied love; - and so it may be indeed - for satisfaction may surfeit it and so it may die. I know many poets who write only when in an exalted state of mind which they compare to ;being in love;,when they do not simply state, that they are in love, that they seek love - for this fresh damsel - or that lively young woman - in order to find a fresh metaphor, or a new bright vision of things in themselves. And to tell you the truth, I have always believed I could diagnose this state of ;being in love; which they regard as ;most particular;, as inspired by item, one pair of black eyes or indifferent blue, ;item;, one graceful attitude of body or mind, ;item;, one female history of some twenty-two years from, shall we say 1821-1844 – I have always believed this ;in love; to be of something of the most abstract masking itself under the particular forms of both lover and beloved. And Poet who assumes and informs both.

The reason why we get the same partners is not because people are the same, but because we pull the dark shadow of past hurts over our eyes and we live the same all over again. We change the actors, but never the masks we give them in our play.

For some young artists, it can take a bit of time to discover which tools (which medium, or genre, or career pathway) will truly suit them best. For me, although many different art forms attract me, the tools that I find most natural and comfortable are language and oil paint; I've also learned that as someone with a limited number of spoons it's best to keep my toolbox clean and simple. My husband, by contrast, thrives with a toolbox absolutely crowded to bursting, working with language, voice, musical instruments, puppets, masks animated on a theater stage, computer and video imagery, and half a dozen other things besides, no one of these tools more important than the others, and all somehow working together. For other artists, the tools at hand might be needles and thread; or a jeweller's torch; or a rack of cooking spices; or the time to shape a young child's day.... To me, it's all art, inside the studio and out. At least it is if we approach our lives that way.

We are all hungry for genuine connection and caring, and we will not get this unless we find our Soul's tribe. If we don't find this, we'll kill ourselves, either by finding an addiction to mask the pain or by ignoring what we need to stay healthy.

My mother said the bizarre name Raccoona had surely been inspired, at least on a subliminal level, by the masks raccoons don't wear but simply have - the ones given them by nature..... [S]he pointed out that Le Guin had suspected all along that Raccoona and Tiptree were two authors that came from the same source, but in a letter to Alice she wrote that she preferred Tiptree to Raccoona: 'Raccoona, I think, has less control, thus less wit and power.' Le Guin, Mother said, had understood something deep. 'When you take on a male persona, something happens.' When I asked her what that was, she sat back in her chair, waved her arm, and smiled. 'You get to be the father.

But the superheroes showed me how to overcome the Bomb. Superhero stories woke me up to my own potential. They gave me the basis of a code of ethics I still live by. They inspired my creativity, brought me money, and made it possible for me to turn doing what I loved into a career. They helped me grasp and understand the geometry of higher dimensions and alerted me to the fact that everything is real, especially our fictions. By offering role models whose heroism and transcendent qualities would once have been haloed and clothed in floaty robes, they nurtured in me a sense of the cosmic and ineffable that the turgid, dogmatically stupid "dad" religions could never match. I had no need for faith. My gods were real, made of paper and light, and they rolled up into my pocket like a superstring dimension.

Love is not the answer, peace is. Throughout my whole life I have experienced and seen others use love as a reason to treat people with unkindness by being controlling, jealous, shouting in anger, and projecting guilt and shame. If you love someone but there is not peace in your heart when you think of that person then your work is not done. Do not stop at love, continue all the way towards the freedom of inner peace. Love starts when peace begins. Without peace love is simply a mask for our insecurity, judgment, and egoic attachments.

Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them. Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.

In the opening scene of the film, Bond glides through the mêlée in a skeleton mask and tux and slips into a hotel with a masked woman. Except, here’s the trick. The Días de los Muertos parade did not inspire the James Bond film. The James Bond film inspired the parade. The Mexican government, afraid that people around the world would see the film and expect that the parade exists when it did not, recruited 1,200 volunteers and spent a year re-creating the four-hour pageant.

Be brave and upright. Shred the fake mask of humility into pieces. And put on the mask of arrogance if needed. Take the whole responsibility of your surrounding society on your own shoulders. If you consider yourself a human being, who cares for humanity, then, become a brave responsible citizen of the whole world. If not a big banyan tree, at least be like a mango tree under the shade of which a few people can rest. You are the architects of this beautiful world. Build it your way. And nourish it with your modern conscience.

Let go, let go, let go, Just let it go, Let the tears come out, Stop fighting the tears back, Stop wearing different masks, Let yourself be seen, Let yourself be the real you,

Why do you keep trying to hide under your mask? Even all the scars from your mistakes make up your constellation.

The secret truth: in this world the mask is what is true.

My identity is not it, which given by the community. my identity is my natural mask.

Confidence is the beauty, kindness is the charm, style is the uniqueness and fashion is the mask.

Anger is a mask that tries to hide inner weakness.

Given her humble origins, few could have imagined the heights she would one day ascend.

In time, that festival of flesh is going to inspire a butt-horn serenade, and Jergen lacks a gas mask.

The brightest mornings sometimes mask sadness in plain sight like makeup over old scars.

I love to travel because that way I can remove the mask off my face and be myself.

Masks were not made to be worn forever, they were made to be taken off to reveal who you truly are.

If I had writing materials, I might write a guidebook, a source of advice and inspiration for the next generation of masked criminals, bent prodigies, and lonely geniuses, the ones who’ve been taught to feel different, or the ones who knew it from the start. The ones who are smart enough to do something about it. There are things they should hear. Somebody has to tell them.

I believe that photography could be used to inspire change. It could tell the truth, and force people to pay attention. I cannot pursue that now, Em, for people want portraits, and portraits alone, but I think that a portrait is a terribly false thing, for what shows in a portrait is little more than a mask made of all that the subject would like the viewer to believe he is.

Likeable”, “Charming”, “Intelligent”, “Alert”, “Impressive”, “Confidence-inspiring,” and “A great success with the ladies”. This is how Hervey Cleckley described most of his subjects in The Mask of Sanity.

The biggest mistake people make when trying to be authentic is just that: they try. They see these role models of what an "authentic" person is supposed to look like or act like, and they try to emulate that. Authenticity isn't about what things appear to be. It's about allowing things to be what they are. Authenticity is about getting away from hiding, from wearing a mask, from always asking, "How should I act? What should I say? What will people think?" That includes asking, "How should an authentic person act? What would a genuine person say?" Being authentic isn't about making yourself a certain way. It's not even about finding out what you "really" enjoy as opposed to what other people enjoy, or who you "really" are as opposed to who other people are. Authenticity is allowing your likes, dislikes, personality, appearance, hobbies, and beliefs to be fluid, to change, to evolve as you learn, grow, and experience the world. At its core, authenticity is the practice of surrendering the tiresome task of keeping up appearances and taking up of the lifetime work of allowing what is already within you to come out while you remove as many internal and external obstacles as possible. And who knows what will spill out of you if you just allow it to? Who knows what is within you awaiting recognition, awaiting permission to show itself to the world? Even you don’t know—until you try. Or, rather, until you stop trying. Until you become curious.

A thinking puppet is the mind of life: Its choice is the work of elemental strengths That know not their own birth and end and cause And glimpse not the immense intent they serve. In this nether life of man drab-hued and dull, Yet filled with poignant small ignoble things, The conscious Doll is pushed a hundred ways And feels the push but not the hands that drive. For none can see the masked ironic troupe To whom our figure-selves are marionettes, Our deeds unwitting movements in their grasp, Our passionate strife an entertainment’s scene.

It seems like everyone these days is putting on a mask to feel beautiful, trying to fit into some pre-established norms of how we should look. This isn’t only painful, it’s ignorant. Saying like we know, better than nature does, what is beautiful and what is not is like a two-year-old lecturing an old man about patience. Nature’s been creating beauty for millennia and you are part of that creation process. Stop the madness. Stop fighting who you are. Let the mask fall. It’ll be strange at first, yes. But, over time, you’ll see beyond the temporary discomfort of stepping outside social norms and learn to see the beauty you were born with, the beauty you’ve been taught to ignore and cover up. You’ll see beauty that will take your breath away, like a sunset. That’s how beautiful you are—like a sunset, like a forest, like a million fireflies on a calm warm night lighting up the sky. You are made by nature. Nature is wiser in the ways of beauty than cosmetics companies or magazines. Break the spell. Gain back your sanity. Go find that brilliant beauty within every single part of you. Go find the universe in your eyes. Remove that cloak that’s been pulled over your eyes and see yourself for who you really are.

This new spirituality is much more about taking off the masks of pretense and cultivating genuine heart connections that inspire growth in both elders and youth, rather than in keeping with tradition or respecting authority. It is all about true aliveness and entering into life in a more full and deep way.

...I have always believed I cd diagnose this state of being in love, which they regard as most particular, as inspired by item, one pair of black eyes or indifferent blue, item, one graceful attitude of body or mind, item, one female history of some twenty-two years from, shall we say, 1821-1844--I have always believed this in love to be something of the most abstract masking itself under the particular forms of both lover and beloved. And Poet, who assumes and informs both. I wd have told you--no, I do tell you--friendship is rarer, more idiosyncratic, more individual and in every way more durable than this Love.

The imperfect freedom that property and law make possible, and on which the soixante-huitards depended for their comforts and their excitements, was not enough. That real but relative freedom must be destroyed for the sake of its illusory but absolute shadow. The new ‘theories’ that poured from the pens of Parisian intellectuals in their battle against the ‘structures’ of bourgeois society were not theories at all, but bundles of paradox, designed to reassure the student revolutionaries that, since law, order, science and truth are merely masks for bourgeois domination, it no longer matters what you think so long as you are on the side of the workers in their ‘struggle’. The genocides inspired by that struggle earned no mention in the writings of Althusser, Deleuze, Foucault and Lacan, even though one such genocide was beginning at that very moment in Cambodia, led by Pol Pot, a Paris-educated member of the French Communist Party.

Any person who can't love you for who you are, your already know is wrong; you're beautifully and wonderfully made, you don't need to wear a mask to belong; look at yourself in the mirror, take a deep breath, close your eyes, and count to three, now open your eyes and take a look at yourself, who can love you, more than me...

Any person who can't love you for who you are, your already know is wrong; you're beautifully and wonderfully made, you don't need to wear a mask to belong; look at yourself in the mirror, take a deep breath, close your eyes, and count to three, now open your eyes and take a look at yourself, who can love you, more than me..." #quote from Exposed Poetry Memoirs, 'Self Talk,' by Pre.Kaya' Gilkey

Of course he burst through the door. It cracked against the massive slabs that formed the stone walls, sending splinters flying, and I didn’t have to try very hard for the startled jump as Lord Pecus strode into the room. I gave a maidenly shriek, and in a moment of truly inspired acting, snatched my dressing gown from the bed to my chest and assumed pose #35, Maidenly Horror. Hands clasped below the breasts and clutching my dressing gown as if to protect girlish modesty, eyes wide- maybe finishing school had been useful for something after all. I thought I might have gone too far, but Lord Pecus, who at my shriek had stopped two strides into the room with a look of horror on his mask, hastily turned his face to the wall. He tried to utter a disjointed apology but I threw one of the pot-pourri bowls at him, and it smashed satisfyingly on the wall, cutting off the attempt.

The Sabbat arose as a conspiracy to destroy the rotten edifice of Church and State, meeting on the heath to avoid the gaze of authority, guised in anonymity and foreboding. This revolutionized the nature of witchcraft, regardless of the pre-existence of the Sabbat form. I do not simply refer here to the inspiring fantasies of Jules Michelet, but the important modern work of Silvia Federici. We see the same attacks on freedom of assembly in the destruction of the free festivals, rave culture and the occupy movement. These have been met by the masked Anonymous, the faceless black bloc anarchists, the direct actions of the ELF. These are expressions of popular witchcraft and have been persecuted by the same inquisition that came for us. I do not say that these are examples of operative witchcraft, I say that we, the people who are the Witchcraft, have a sacred duty to join this war. We need to celebrate Grand Sabbats again, infuse them with our witchblood, our cunning.

: Whether we are aware of it or not, we will refine the quality of our humanity throughout the course of our lives. More and more, people seek spiritual techniques to help them do this. But joy and suffering will do this for you, too. Every lifetime offers countless opportunities to become more whole. Life offers its wisdom generously. Everything teaches. Not everyone learns. Life asks of us the same thing we have been asked in every class: "Stay awake." "Pay attention." But paying attention is no simple matter. It requires us not to be distracted by expectations, past experiences, labels, and masks. It asks that we not jump to early conclusions and that we remain open to surprise. Wisdom comes most easily to those who have the courage to embrace life without judgment and are willing to not know, sometimes for a long time. It requires us to be more fully and simply alive than we have been taught to be. It may require us to suffer. But ultimately we will be more than we were when we began.

I have proved that a mask by its very existence is basically destructive. Equivalent to premeditated murder, the mask can stand shoulder to shoulder, with no feeling of inferiority, with arson or banditry. It was not surprising that the mask, which itself was a form of destruction, was not inspired to such crimes as arson and murder, although it was in the act of walking now through the ruins of human relationships destroyed by its existence. Despite the throbbing cancer of its cravings, it was satisfied simply to be.

A thinking puppet is the mind of life: Its choice is the work of elemental strengths That know not their own birth and end and cause And glimpse not the immense intent they serve. In this nether life of man drab-hued and dull, Yet filled with poignant small ignoble things, The conscious Doll is pushed a hundred ways And feels the push but not the hands that drive. For none can see the masked ironic troupe To whom our figure-selves are marionettes, Our deeds unwitting movements in their grasp, Our passionate strife an entertainment’s scene.

I once taped a show in which a life coach discussed the concept of self-care - putting your own needs ahead of anyone else's - and the audience booed. Women were upset by the mere suggestion that they should put their needs before those of their children. I interrupted to explain: No one was saying you should abandon your children and let them starve, The life coach was suggesting that you nurture yourself so you'll have more nurturing to give to those who most need you. It's the airplane oxygen-mask theory: If you don't put on your mask first, you won't be able to save anyone else.

This pandemic is world reset. We have a chance to change the world. What is has proven is no matter what your politics, no matter what your religion, no matter what your job status. We are all brother and sister in the world together. Human kindness has come out in so many ways. Can't buy a mask people make it for you. Don't have food, let me drop some off at your porch. Love is all around you. All you have to do is look! I think the world need a hippie right now and I am going to be a tad optimistic. Some advise from the original hippie. Love Thy Neighbor As Yourself. Let's have that as the new rule in this world reset.

Masculinity is not about being the biggest, the fastest, the strongest, the one who sleeps with the most girls, and the one who has the most money. The one who has the most accomplishments is not the most masculine. In fact, it is often the men who covet these things most who are covering and compensating for the greatest insecurities. Let us revere the one who loves others deeply, loves himself deeply, and has a dream that he is inspired to live with and by and through. He is a man. He does not stand unmoved or untouched in the face of truly moving experiences. He does not judge the totality of his life or anyone else’s life by the totals on the scoreboard as the clock ticks down to zero. He does not use money as a proxy for emotional connection nor material possessions as the measure of his self-worth. He does not define his manhood by the number of women he has conquered. He does not always fight fire with fire; sometimes he doesn’t need to fight at all. He does not meet seriousness with silliness when it is seriousness that is required. He does not take risks for risks’ sake, because he does not hide from his frailty, his mortality, or his humanity. He does not pretend to know everything about anything, nor is he afraid to admit when he knows nothing about something. And perhaps most important of all, he does not walk around thinking he’s The Man. No, the masculine man goes through a journey, a process of self-discovery, and figures out what he needs to do to acquire the tools, knowledge, wisdom, grace, love, passion, and joy to pursue his destiny. His destiny is his dreams. Those may evolve over time, but in their pursuit, he is not breaking down anyone else or hurting anyone else. He is not at war with other people, conquering them. He is the one joining forces, searching for the win-win. He is the one who is lifting others up, inspiring others through his journey and his own process (in which he is finding ways to create value along the way). He is the hero of his own journey. And in so being, he is looking for every way to have the best relationships possible with his family, friends, his romantic partner, his colleagues, or his customers. He’s finding ways to be the best possible version of himself. Masculinity is about discovering yourself and owning what you find. It’s about being kind to others, and pursuing your dreams with all the passion and energy you can muster. It’s about doing something that is meaningful to you that brings value to others. That’s how you build a legacy.

There are not many secure hospitals that can boast someone who thought he was Napoleon, but St. Cerebellum’s could field three—not to mention a handful of serial killers whose names inexplicably yet conveniently rhymed with their crimes. Notorious cannibal “Peter the Eater” was incarcerated here, as were “Sasha the Slasher” and “Mr. Browner the Serial Drowner.” But the undisputed king of rhyme-inspired serial murder was Isle of Man resident Maximilian Marx, who went under the uniquely tongue-twisting epithet “Mad Max Marx, the Masked Manxman Axman.” Deirdre Blott tried to top Max’s clear superiority by changing her name so as to become “Nutty Nora Newsome, the Knife-Wielding Weird Widow from Waddersdon,” but no one was impressed, and she was ostracized by the other patients for being such a terrible show-off.

The religious utopian hides his pride behind the mask of humility; he recognizes God alone; he does not recognize ministers or sacraments since he puts himself in place of both. He ministers his own religious needs and he consecrates his inner self as a place of worship more worthy of receiving God than the churches. He substitutes his own sentiments and emotions for doctrine, because doctrines are man-made speculations unable to comprehend God's essence. He considers the sacramental, ceremonial and generally institutional aspects of religion as rigid and expendable molds which are adequate for the unthinking who need strong sensations and impressions to sustain their faith. He, on the other hand, puts his trust in his own individual inspiration, strengthens his faith through direct and permanent contact with the divine and so rises as a pure spirit to the level of a "truer" religion. The secular utopian also displays excessive pride. He believes that societies of the past were based on error since they yielded to the political principle of organization and hierarchy. The goal of the utopian is to create a society in its pristine purity, as it were, unsullied by laws and magistrates, functioning through its members' natural good will and cooperativeness. Laws, institutions, symbols, flags, armies, disciplines, patriotic encouragement and the like will all be abolished because, for pure social beings, their inner motivation of social living - togetherness - is quite sufficient and because they would serve to anchor the citizens, bodily and emotionally, in the soil and reality of the State just as pomp and ceremony, rules and institutions anchor the faithful in religion.

Referring to a mask as a law of nature is another way of saying that it cannot be escaped or transcended; there is no getting beyond or beneath it. But when Deleuze describes the intention of interpretation, we find it is 'an art of piercing masks, of discovering the one that masks himself, why he does it and the point of keeping up the mask while it is being reshaped'." The Nietzschean-inspired disavowal of ideology is based on the claim that critique is only an ongoing series of interpretations where masks give way to nothing but more of their own. Deleuze's instruction is to pierce masks so that motivations and strategies can be discovered, whether they belong to subjects or to a particular manifestation of power. The obvious implication is that the appearance of a mask obscures other qualities that are potentially more fundamental than just another mask.

Erik rose, as I entered, but dared not turn in my direction. 'Erik!' I cried, 'show me your face without fear! I swear you are the most unhappy and sublime of men; and, if ever again I shiver when I look at you, it will be because I am thinking of the splendor of your genius!' Then Erik turned round, for he believed me, and I also had faith in myself. He fell at my feet with words of love... with words of love in his dead mouth... and the music had ceased... He kissed the hem of my dress and did not see that I closed my eyes. "What more can I tell you, dear? You now know the tragedy. It went on for a fortnight- a fortnight during which I lied to him. My lies were as hideous as the monster who inspired them; but they were the price of my liberty. I burned his mask; and I managed so well that, even when he was not singing, he tried to catch my eye, like a dog sitting by its master. He was my faithful slave and paid me endless little attentions.

By posing climate change as a battle between capitalism and the planet, I am not saying anything that we don't already know. the battle is already under way, but right now capitalism is winning hands down. it wins every time the need for economic growth is used as the excuse for putting off climate action yet again, of for breaking emission reduction commitments already made. it wins when Greeks are told that their only path out of economic crises is to open up their beautiful seas to high-risk oil and gas drilling. it wins when Canadians are told our only hope of not ending unlike Greece is to allow our boreal forests to be flayed so we can access the semisolid bitumen from the Alberta tar sands . it wins when a park in Istanbul is slotted for demolition to make way for yet another shopping mall. it wins when parents in Beijing are told that sending their wheezing kids to school in pollution masks decorated to look like cute cartoon characters is an acceptable price for economic progress. it wins every time we accept that we have only bad choices available to us: austerity or extraction, poisoning or poverty.

Another aspect of this – one that he makes into an extended, if slightly ghoulish, case study – was to be found in the funerals of ‘distinguished men’. Again, Polybius must have witnessed enough of these to draw out their deeper significance. The body, he explains, was carried into the Forum and placed on the rostra, normally propped up somehow in an upright position, so it was visible to a large audience. In the procession that followed, family members wore masks made in the likeness of the dead man’s ancestors and dressed in the costume appropriate to the offices each had held (purple-bordered togas and so on), as if they were all present ‘living and breathing’. The funeral address, delivered by a family member, started with the achievements of the corpse on the rostra but then went through the careers of all the other characters, who by this time were sitting on ivory, or at least ivory-veneered, chairs lined up next to the dead man. ‘The most important upshot of this,’ Polybius concludes, ‘is that the younger generation is inspired to endure all suffering for the common good, in the hope of winning the glory that belongs to the brave.

Legends told that in the Dark Days, when the Graces walked the earth and inspired humanity to rise up and fight back against the Demons who ruled over them, the Grace of Luck would sometimes appear at people’s doors in disguise—be their homes ever so humble or ever so proud—and beg for food or shelter. Those who offered hospitality were rewarded with Her blessing, and received great fortune; and as such, on the Night of Masks, every household must offer hospitality to any masked reveler who showed up at their door. This custom had, naturally, evolved in Raverra to the throwing of lavish masquerades, made all the more exciting by the possibility that anyone could turn up at one’s party, from the doge himself to a notorious jewel thief. So long as they wore an acceptable mask, they could join the festivities. Most Raverrans flitted from ball to ball throughout the night, and the revelry poured out into the streets and canals. It was a day of mysteries and surprises, of charity and cunning, of terrible mistakes to be regretted the next morning and wondrous coincidences to transform one’s life. A night of intrigue and enchantment, of romance and adventure.

My interest in comics was scribbled over with a revived, energized passion for clothes, records, and music. I'd wandered in late to the punk party in 1978, when it was already over and the Sex Pistols were history. I'd kept my distance during the first flush of the new paradigm, when the walls of the sixth-form common room shed their suburban-surreal Roger Dean Yes album covers and grew a fresh new skin of Sex Pistols pictures, Blondie pinups, Buzzcocks collages, Clash radical chic. As a committed outsider, I refused to jump on the bandwagon of this new musical fad, which I'd written off as some kind of Nazi thing after seeing a photograph of Sid Vicious sporting a swastika armband. I hated the boys who'd cut their long hair and binned their crappy prog albums in an attempt to join in. I hated pretty much everybody without discrimination, in one way or another, and punk rockers were just something else to add to the shit list. But as we all know, it's zealots who make the best converts. One Thursday night, I was sprawled on the settee with Top of the Pops on the telly when Poly Styrene and her band X-Ray Spex turned up to play their latest single: an exhilarating sherbet storm of raw punk psychedelia entitled "The Day the World Turned Day-Glo" By the time the last incandescent chorus played out, I was a punk. I had always been a punk. I would always be a punk. Punk brought it all together in one place for me: Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius novels were punk. Peter Barnes's The Ruling Class, Dennis Potter, and The Prisoner were punk too. A Clockwork Orange was punk. Lindsay Anderson's If ... was punk. Monty Python was punk. Photographer Bob Carlos Clarke's fetish girls were punk. Comics were punk. Even Richmal Crompton's William books were punk. In fact, as it turned out, pretty much everything I liked was punk. The world started to make sense for the first time since Mosspark Primary. New and glorious constellations aligned in my inner firmament. I felt born again. The do-your-own-thing ethos had returned with a spit and a sneer in all those amateurish records I bought and treasured-even though I had no record player. Singles by bands who could often barely play or sing but still wrote beautiful, furious songs and poured all their young hearts, experiences, and inspirations onto records they paid for with their dole money. If these glorious fuckups could do it, so could a fuckup like me. When Jilted John, the alter ego of actor and comedian Graham Fellows, made an appearance on Top of the Pops singing about bus stops, failed romance, and sexual identity crisis, I was enthralled by his shameless amateurism, his reduction of pop music's great themes to playground name calling, his deconstruction of the macho rock voice into the effeminate whimper of a softie from Sheffield. This music reflected my experience of teenage life as a series of brutal setbacks and disappointments that could in the end be redeemed into art and music with humor, intelligence, and a modicum of talent. This, for me, was the real punk, the genuine anticool, and I felt empowered. The losers, the rejected, and the formerly voiceless were being offered an opportunity to show what they could do to enliven a stagnant culture. History was on our side, and I had nothing to lose. I was eighteen and still hadn't kissed a girl, but perhaps I had potential. I knew I had a lot to say, and punk threw me the lifeline of a creed and a vocabulary-a soundtrack to my mission as a comic artist, a rough validation. Ugly kids, shy kids, weird kids: It was okay to be different. In fact, it was mandatory.

Straightening reluctantly, she strolled about the room with forced nonchalance, her hands clasped behind her back, looking blindly at the cobwebs in the corner of the ceiling, trying to think what to say. And then inspiration struck. The solution was demeaning but practical, and properly presented, it could appear she was graciously doing him a favor. She paused a moment to arrange her features into what she hoped was the right expression of enthusiasm and compassion, then she wheeled around abruptly. “Mr. Thornton!” Her voice seemed to explode in the room at the same time his startled amber gaze riveted on her face, then drifted down her bodice, roving boldly over her ripened curves. Unnerved but determined, Elizabeth forged shakily ahead: “It appears as if no one has occupied this house in quite some time.” “I commend you on that astute observation, lady Cameron,” Ian mocked lazily, watching the tension and emotion play across her expressive face. For the life of him he could not understand what she was doing here or why she seemed to be trying to ingratiate herself this morning. Last night the explanation he’d given Jake had made sense; now, looking at her, he couldn’t quite believe any of it. Then he remembered that Elizabeth Cameron had always robbed him of the ability to think rationally. “Houses do have a way of succumbing to dirt when no one looks after them,” she stated with a bright look. “Another creditable observation. You’ve certainly a quick mind.” “Must you make this so very difficult!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “I apologize,” he said with mocking gravity. “Do go on. You were saying?” “Well, I was thinking, since we’re quite stranded here-Lucinda and I, I mean-with absolutely nothing but time on our hands, that this house could certainly use a woman’s touch.” “Capital idea!” burst out Jake, returning from his mission to locate the butter and casting a highly hopeful look at Lucinda. He was rewarded with a glare from her that could have pulverized rock. “It could use an army of servants carrying shovels and wearing masks on their faces,” the duenna countered ruthlessly. “You needn’t help, Lucinda,” Elizabeth explained, aghast. “I never meant to imply you should. But I could! I-“ She whirled around as Ian Thornton surged to his feet and took her elbow in a none-too-gentle grasp. “Lady Cameron,” he said. “I think you and I have something to discuss that may be better spoken in private. Shall we?” He gestured to the open door and then practically dragged her along in his wake. Outdoors in the sunlight he marched her forward several paces, then dropped her arm. “Let’s hear it,” he said. “Hear what?” Elizabeth said nervously. “An explanation-the truth, if you’re capable of it. Last night you drew a gun on me, and this morning you’re awash with excitement over the prospect over the prospect of cleaning my house. I want to know why.” “Well,” Elizabeth burst out in defense of her actions with the gun, “you were extremely disagreeable!” “I am still disagreeable,” he pointed out shortly, ignoring Elizabeth’s raised brows. “I haven’t changed. I am not the one who’s suddenly oozing goodwill this morning.” Elizabeth turned her head to the lane, trying desperately to think of an explanation that wouldn’t reveal to him her humiliating circumstances. “The silence is deafening, Lady Cameron, and somewhat surprising. As I recall, the last time we met you could scarcely contain all the edifying information you were trying to impart to me.” Elizabeth knew he was referring to her monologue on the history of hyacinths in the greenhouse. “I just don’t know where to begin,” she admitted. “Let’s stick to the salient points. What are you doing here?

Listen to some words: Today Christianity stands at the head of this country. . . . I pledge that I will never tie myself to those who want to destroy Christianity. . . . We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit—we want to burn out all the recent immoral development in literature, theater, the arts and in the press. . . . In short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of liberal excess the past . . . few years.2 Take these words at face value. Do they resonate with you? Here is what one listener said upon hearing them: “This . . . puts in words everything I have been searching for, for years. It is the first time someone gave form to what I want.”3 I suspect many would say the same. There are thousands of people who, upon hearing these words spoken, would cheer and agree and say amen. The words are Adolph Hitler’s, and the listener was someone in the audience who made that comment to Joseph Goebbels in 1933. Goebbels was Hitler’s minister of propaganda and clearly a very good one. Hitler’s words sound like they are inspired by Christian faith and morality. Listeners assumed a certain kind of person stood behind them. But Hitler’s words masked the deception behind them so that those listening, without knowing the character of the man, heard what they longed for but what never came to fruition. What did come was the extermination of millions, the destruction of countries, and evil that has affected generations. The words were said to manipulate the audience whose longings the Third Reich understood well. Hitler deliberately deceived the people and drew them in, calling forth loyalty and service. And he got it, not just from the general population but also from the German church. Words full of promises that cloaked great evil were tailored for a vulnerable culture.

A splash of light snuck beneath the a dressing room door. He heard a groan. A shuffle. A bump. A heavy sigh. "Uh, too tight." He walked toward the back, stopping outside the dressing room. The door was cracked a fraction. He rested a shoulder against the wall, and glanced inside. Grace as Catwoman blew his mind. A feline fantasy. The three-way mirror tripled his pleasure. He viewed her from every angle. Hot, sleek, fierce. The lady could fight Batman in her skintight black leather catsuit and come out the winner. After a moment she scrunched her nose, slapped her palms against her thighs. Stuck out her tongue at her reflection in the mirrors. He saw what had her so frustrated. Sympathized with her disappointment. Her costume didn't fit. The front zipper hadn't fully cleared her cleavage, which was deep and visible. She wore no bra. She gave a little hop, and her breasts bounced. Full and plump. He felt a tug at his groin. Superhero lust. He cleared his throat and made his presence known. She caught his image in the corner of the glass, and reached for the fitting room chair, positioning it between them. Like that would keep him from her. He should've looked away, but couldn't. He sensed her embarrassment. Her panic. Flight? She had nowhere to go. He blocked the door. He wasn't leaving until they'd talked. "Archibald's going to love your costume," he initiated. She didn't find him funny. Her gaze narrowed behind the molded cat-eye mask with attached ears. Her fingers clenched in her elbow-length gloves. Inspired by the movie The Dark Knight, she'd added a whip and a gun holster. Her thigh-high stiletto boots were killer, adding five inches to her height. Her image would stick with him forever. She backed against the center mirror, and nervously fingered the open flaps over her breasts. A yank on the zipper broke the tab. The metal teeth parted, and the gap widened, revealing the round inner curves of her breasts. A hint of her nipples. Dusky pink. All the way down to the dent of her navel.

I’d met Madison, as I’ve already mentioned, two months earlier, in Budapest. I’d been at a conference. She’d been there with some girlfriends. We’d got talking in the hotel bar. An anthropologist, she’d said; that’s … exotic. Not at all, I’d replied; I work for an incorporated business, in a basement. Yes, she said, but … But what? I asked. Dances, and masks, and feathers, she eventually responded: that’s the essence of your work, isn’t it? I mean, even if you’re writing a report on workplace etiquette, or how to motivate employees or whatever, you’re seeing it all through a lens of rituals, and rites, and stuff. It must make the everyday all primitive and strange—no? I saw what she was getting at; but she was wrong. For anthropologists, even the exotic’s not exotic, let alone the everyday. In his key volume Tristes Tropiques, Claude Lévi-Strauss, the twentieth century’s most brilliant ethnographer, describes pacing the streets, all draped with new electric cable, of Lahore’s Old Town sometime in the nineteen-fifties, trying to piece together, long after the event, a vanished purity—of local colour, texture, custom, life in general—from nothing but leftovers and debris. He goes on to describe being struck by the same impression when he lived among the Amazonian Nambikwara tribe: the sense of having come “too late”—although he knows, from having read a previous account of life among the Nambikwara, that the anthropologist (that account’s author) who came here fifty years earlier, before the rubber-traders and the telegraph, was struck by that impression also; and knows as well that the anthropologist who, inspired by the account that Lévi-Strauss will himself write of this trip, shall come back in fifty more will be struck by it too, and wish—if only!—that he could have been here fifty years ago (that is, now, or, rather, then) to see what he, Lévi-Strauss, saw, or failed to see. This leads him to identify a “double-bind” to which all anthropologists, and anthropology itself, are, by their very nature, prey: the “purity” they crave is no more than a state in which all frames of comprehension, of interpretation and analysis, are lacking; once these are brought to bear, the mystery that drew the anthropologist towards his subject in the first place vanishes. I explained this to her; and she seemed, despite the fact that she was drunk, to understand what I was saying. Wow, she murmured; that’s kind of fucked. 2.8 When I arrived at Madison’s, we had sex. Afterwards,