Facade

Little kids are smarter than we think they are. Because they are so much younger, we tended to talk down to them, but in reality they understand more than it see. They see and hear everything and they might not know what you’re saying, but they do know what’s going on. Babies, though they cry and scream, are quiet, they can’t talk yet, and they’re curious about the world since everything is just so new to them. It’s like Pearl from the Scarlet Letter, she’s young but she knows so much. She knows she is the scarlet letter, she knows she is different from the other kids, she knows there is something between Hester and Mr. Dimmesdale. You think they’re not listen, but they’re always listening, absorbing everything around them. Sometimes they’re even smarter than the adults. While adults have their knowledge clouded with judgement and biases, little kids see things as they are because they don’t have much bias since it’s new to them.

The worst kind of pain is when you’re smiling just to stop the tears from falling.

-Hiro Mashima

We make assumptions about people based on how they act, their age, their personality, but that persona could be something completely different from who they actually are. Everyone wears a mask at some point in life to hide, shelter themselves from the world. The world can’t hurt you, if it doesn’t even actually know you.  A smile isn’t always real, sometimes it’s hiding the hurt, the pain, the tears. It’s easy to just show the world it hurts, but it seems nobody cares if you’re hurt so you just put on a smile. You put on a smile to show everyone around that you’re okay, because that’s what they want. A real smile and a forced smile are different but nobody cares enough to tell them apart, if you’re going to hide behind a smile people normally won’t help. Take away the mask and you’re left with someone vulnerable. Maybe it’s the idea of faking it till you make it because if you pretend you’re happy for long enough, you start believing you’re truly happy.

We’re all a little kid, that will always be apart of us, so we see everything around us. But, we don’t act on it anymore, why? Sometimes we hide that childish part of use because it makes us seem weak, others might look down on us, but does it matter. There are those who embrace their inner child, like me, but that exterior is sometimes still just a defence, another wall to keep out. They assume that if we act like a five year old then we’re always so joyful like a five year old, but that is probably the opposite. Under this persona, I not always smiling, not alway happy, but why bother others with my problems if they don’t care. I’m not saying you should hide behind a facade and pretend everything’s okay, you  should definitely talk about it, but this a defense mechanism. Little kids seem to always see right past these disguises, though maybe that’s why they have such good judgement of character. Or maybe, we’re just too blinded by our only facade to be able to see others.