The Great Unmasking
There are moments on a river when the water itself seems to grow quieter. Not because it has stopped moving, but because the day’s excitement has drifted downstream and everyone has begun listening to something deeper.
One such evening we pulled our rafts onto a broad gravel bar after another long day threading our way through rapids. The mountains were already casting long shadows across the valley and the first stars were beginning to appear above the dark outlines of the pines. Someone coaxed a small fire into life while another filled billy cans from the river. Before long the familiar sounds of camp settled around us; quiet conversation, the clatter of mugs and the comforting crackle of burning timber.
The boys had changed since the first day.
Not dramatically. Rivers rarely work that way. They change people much as they shape stone, quietly and almost unnoticed until, one day, you realise something has become smoother than it once was.
Even so, many still wore the masks they had arrived with.
One boy hid behind jokes; another behind anger; some rarely spoke at all while several rarely stopped talking.
It struck me that although every mask looked different, they all served much the same purpose. They protected something more tender that had learned, somewhere along the journey of growing up, that it was safer not to be seen.
As I looked around the fire, I found myself wondering when boys first discover the need for masks. Surely it isn’t something they are born knowing.
No little fellow proudly announces that he hopes one day to become emotionally distant or afraid of kindness. Somewhere along the way they simply notice what earns approval and what attracts ridicule. Slowly, almost without realising it, they begin sanding away parts of themselves until they fit the shape expected of them.
The river had been quietly teaching something rather different. It had shown these boys that strength and gentleness were perfectly capable of travelling in the same raft. The strongest guide among us was usually the first to help someone carry a heavy barrel.
The finest paddlers patiently encouraged those who struggled. Even the river itself possessed a curious mixture of power and grace. It could carve canyons through solid rock yet carry a single autumn leaf without tearing it apart. Perhaps real strength had never been what many of us imagined.
That evening I picked up a piece of driftwood lying beside the fire and held it across my face.
“What can you see now?” I asked. “Not much,” one of the boys laughed. I lowered the stick.
“That’s the trouble with masks,” I said quietly. “They don’t only hide us from other people. After a while they begin hiding us from ourselves.”
The fire settled into glowing embers. Nobody hurried to fill the silence.
Then one of the quieter boys spoke. “I reckon I started pretending in primary school.”
Heads nodded around the circle. Another admitted he couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried. Someone else confessed he was exhausted from always acting tough. Then Ben, the loudest boy in the group, surprised us all.
“When I was little,” he said, staring into the coals, “I used to rescue birds.” He smiled to himself. “If I found one that couldn’t fly, I’d take it home and Mum and I would look after it.”
Nobody laughed; in fact nobody needed to. For a few moments the tough young bloke who had spent days hiding behind humour quietly disappeared, and in his place sat the little boy he had once been.
As I watched him staring into the fire, it occurred to me that becoming a good man is rarely about acquiring something new. It is more often the gentle, courageous work of shedding the layers that never really belonged to us; the pretending, the posturing, the armour and the mask. Then, almost without noticing, we find ourselves face to face with the little boy who once rescued wounded birds and wondered why anyone would harm them. Perhaps that is the greatest unmasking of all.
The Rip Off
We learned pretty young how a bloke should behave,
look tough, hide your fear, act cocky and brave.
So we pulled on a mask and strutted about,
while the bloke underneath rarely got to come out.
But wearing that mask can be quite a charade,
all swagger and bluster, a role being played.
It takes greater courage to drop the disguise,
and let the real you look out through new eyes.
So rip off the mask, mate, give yourself space,
there’s nothing unmanly in showing your face.
You might just discover, when pretence is gone,
the man you were seeking was there all along.