Ah, a Face

"Don't think of it as failure. Think of it as time-released success"
-Robert Orben

The human face is one of the great mysteries. What makes a face a face? Is it the look, the features, the eyes, all the above, none of the above, or both and perhaps something more.

A face can tell it all, or it can hide it all. Is there anything as comforting as a kind face, reassuring as a warm smile and electrifying as sparkling eyes?

And is there anything more disturbing than a scowl, unsettling than a dirty stare, dismissive than a frown and alarming than a frightened face?

Then there is the sheepish look, the proud look, the bright face and the ashen one. The blush and the flinch, the pride and the shame, the joy and the pain. The entire spectrum of life experience, the tangible and not so tangible, is captured in our facial expressions.

When we want to see another?s reaction the first place we look is usually at the face. The reason is perhaps because as newborns our first sights are the faces of our mothers and fathers.

A face tells a story. A face is a story. Many stories ? many volumes. A face is a study in the mysteries of human nature. It reveals and it conceals all at once.

Can we ever know the depth of feelings that lie behind a smile or a grimace?

A face seems to express the external surface, as in ?the face of the matter.? Indeed, one can put on a false face that does not reflect what lies within. You can smile while feeling miserable inside.

The true nature of a face is that even as we may use it to conceal, it reflects the inside of a person. The world in which we live is so structured that the surface obscures all that is going on within. On the surface level we may feel that we are in control and know a thing or two. Until something shakes our comfort zone, waking us up from our reverie.

You are alive when you have a healthy balance of angst and resolve. Yearning, reaching for something greater. Then integrating it.