The mask brings an opportunity to hide vulnerabilities innate to our physical form. That we are accountable to the actions of the body is an intrinsic consequence of the ability for one to be identified. Repeating the ritual of suppressing that ability also ambiguates one's experience, conception of self, and conception of reality as a whole.
As the human face is an interface through which it's plausible that the densest data can be exchanged, as not only does it rapidly provide a path to large sets of metadata, but it also provides a dynamic and continuous stream of output containing potent indicators of emotive and physiological state heavily impacting the context of environment and probabilities of an ever-changing set of outcomes.
As we alter the standard of social interaction by means which constrain the use of our most significant and stimulating junction, we facilitate focus on increasingly detached and arbitrary endpoints. This means a reality where humans are less able to recognize one another's unique form, state of being, and viability in this world, and one where we are more readily invited to indulge in directing our minds to matters of import to one's ego.
Oh, the irony of bringing about an industrial revolution, in the name of altruism and humanity, whose effect is to isolate us in chambers of vanity so easily believed to be virtue.
September 17, 2023
Yes, we remember, but is it just to feed bitterness? Surely the first thought is that thinking of it at all would breed some resentment and make one more stubbornly resistant against differences of opinion. But we were never permitted to express differences of opinion, because we were made to be inconsequential advocates, nullified and made inert insofar as being able to affect the world for anything we believe to be of value, save one small exception:
So, no, it wasn't mere difference of opinion, as we became uncertain of our very survival in this structure for which all seemed content to feed its power to whatever point it might reach. And if nothing was learned from before, then we expect even lesser chances to make it through further iterations of similar kind.