What's in a Face?

What's in a face?
It can be everything... and nothing.
Your face can be an indicator of things. It tells the world your approximate age, sometimes your gender, and sometimes your lineage.
And it can hold secrets. It can show the effects of disease, or perhaps the condition of your heart by the presence of tears (...or signs that tears had recently fallen).
It can signal fertility in a woman...and likewise, virility in a man.
It can be as revealing as an expression. Or, more cryptic, with pupils widened in distress or great emotion.
Whatever realm a person exists in, can be immediately perceived in their face..
...and...
... it can be faked.
Like an actor learning every line, every motion, and every obstacle to master, all these signs can be hidden, while false signs are put in their place. The weilders of these skills are master assett replicators.
Positive attributes: enhanced, negative attributes diminished. And what cannot be dealt with easily, can just be covered up... hidden behind a veneer, like a veiled dancer, in an attempt to  distract the onlooker's eye from the obvious. If they're very good at what they do, they accompany their paint by adjusting their attitude to match. And they go through life accessorizing their facade with a personality commensurate with how they feel they can best achieve their desired result(s).
At the other end of the face spectrum, the unfettered face is like a fresh slice of organic fruit. Without any protection, it will show every scar, it's history & what's befallen it, and, probably how much time it relatively has left on this earth.
It will undoubtedly accept it's fate to the first threat to come along and partake of it's pure sweetness. Before long, it's tarnished... ruined... but, it has lived an honest existence... "real".
It had lived it's life on a mission to be pure... by not being on a mission at all.
For all the people willing to be masters of facades, there are just as many who shame those who do, and gloat their "realness", like they have won a victory over those who must acquiesce to what they might feel are petty measures.
Or they might feel that the people are feeble in their ostentatious quest for  acceptance. The pure ones may mock the paint and facades, not knowing they're exhibiting the very traits of shallowness they proclaim to be free from possessing.
But the face only offers a tease of what's below the surface. It's only one dimensional. In most people's busy lives, we rarely get past noticing the paint (or lack of it), and even more rarely, looking into someone's eyes, and seeing into their depths.
When one bothers to take the time to look beyond what is "skin deep", they can see the many-layered dimensions that make up a person.
Enter: music, art, expression... production, drive... essentially the clockwork that makes a person tick. Some may be destined for greatness, while others may resign to monotony. (I firmly believe enlightenment (and it doesn't have to be holy... it could just be an epiphany, or realization, or knowledge) is the only thing separating a person from mediocrity or greatness.)
I believe great accomplishment lies in all of us. Many people just haven't realized it yet, and don't know enough to know... how to recognize it. Some of us see that potential in them already, having been where they are before. And each journey is different. Each trajectory, unique to the person who possesses it.
My own evolution was slow. In fact, you could say it's been a lifetime in the making. Only, it picked up ferocity and speed in the last decade. I didn't even know what I wanted a decade ago. Like a Polaroid picture, the "big picture" slowly came into focus, and its image would directly reflect my surroundings... and what I'd been exposed to would transpose on the film.
Like a wood carver, I whittled away what I thought was superfluous to my true self, in order to hone, and perfect the vision that I had for my life (well, the one that was slowly coming into focus). Ironically, my journey started with my study of faces (which is why that topic has been so heavily peppered throughout this writing, as it's necessary to see how a study of one thing took me completely  in the opposite direction... indeed, helped me see "more").
I was fascinated by all it's complexities, but even more drawn in by what was beneath.
I had mastered esthetic skill, having obtained an esthetician license. It's  where I assumed my direction would be headed.
I had always loved art, and self-expression. And this field allows both: to paint, and to change (effectively have the power to alter) the wearer's life, and the perception of those around them. If it weren't for the life-altering mold exposure I had about a year into my esthetic endeavor, then I shortly would have recognized my expression would yearn to be more complex than putting a layer of paint on someone, and staying tuned to hear what their friends & relatives had to say.
Crippled... but recovering... I took respite in a sedentary line of work, which required little movement, and would keep me isolated, with long hours of working alone, to keep me from getting sick, as I was vulnerable to respiratory illness, after the mold had compromised my lungs.
I chose "broadcasting". And it has been quite a ride thru this last decade since my decision to alter my direction, and pursue this line of (very competitive) work.
I began healing... slowly. And finding myself along the way. Life had metaphorically gagged me & thrown me in a trunk to die. Many people I met along the way were like rats, chewing on me in my weakened state. There were some I met, who I've kept as friends.
I had to stay focused.
Without a clear-cut example by which to follow, I stuck by my code of ethics, and I was determined not to deviate. In fact, at times, it's all I had. But I had decided that no matter what life threw my way, I had to soldier on.
And in my new lot, in the field I chose, climbing the ladder wasn't just optional... It was everything.
Each year found me healthier... stronger. But it was not without it's own encyclopedia of events & adventures. (I'll save those for a different blog.)
A decade (no: a lifetime) of conforming to the world around me, I was no longer the same person I was going in. I was stronger, more fierce... a survivor. I had been thru the valley of the shadow of darkness, and I could navigate that m'f*ing topography by brail!
Something began to bubble in me ... and it's still there. And I don't know the ending of it, or what will be...
I only know when I came out from under that rock of circumstances, I burned to say more... to express it on my terms ... to say it big... to say it loud... and to do it with all the layers and dimensions of a symphony. 
Sometimes, success only needs perserverence as a recipe. But, I wanted more. I sought to sew my own crop over the rotting seeds life had dealt me, and crush them. I wanted to smother that incinerated harvest, with the new leaves I was turning over.
I wanted to vindicate myself to myself, on my own terms, from the mindless taunts of those who chose not to accept me when I put them first, yet never tried to hide who I was... of those who took advantage in my vulnerable state.
I wanted to take all those years I'd cast my pearls amongst swine... the years of walking on eggshells... the disappearing into myself so that they might glow brighter, and I wanted to walk away knowing that even if I'd lost... even if they didn't understand me, I had been true to myself, and therefore, I had really lost nothing at all.
So the truth that set me free, was being true to myself. In all my searching, in turning up stones, and coming up empty, I've found this is the one key, and it lies within...give yourself a name, to thine own self be noted, and not lost...
Make a name for yourself in this world ... rather than a face.