«Today plenty of people dress up on purpose, and there's something wise in that: for a little while, the mask is a game rather than an obligation. The rest of the year most of us wear one or another — the efficient one, the calm one, the one who always copes — and they aren't bad, they help us live alongside others. The beautiful part is that beneath every one of them is someone who doesn't need a costume to deserve warmth.»

Going deeper

Jung called it the "persona," the face we show the world, and the word comes from Latin theatre, where it meant the actor's mask. He didn't see it as a flaw. A flexible persona is necessary for working, for raising children, for sharing an elevator with the neighbours. The trouble starts when we identify so completely with the role that we forget we're playing it.

That fusion often feels like a diffuse tiredness, a "don't know what's wrong with me" that more sleep doesn't fix. A good part of our energy goes into holding up the image: seeming steady, seeming friendly, seeming in control. For Jung, the path of individuation involves telling apart what we show from what we are, without throwing either one away.

Think of someone who is "the one who fixes everything" at work and gets home unable to ask even their partner for help. They don't have to give up the role; it's enough to loosen it a little, with an "I'm struggling today." Each time they do, they find something precious: the relationship holds, and often grows closer, because at last there's a real person on the other side.

That's why today's costumes can be gentle teachers. They remind us that we can put things on and take them off, that there's room for play, that identity doesn't shatter when we hold it lightly. And that beneath every character is someone who doesn't need approval to be worthy of warmth, from others or from themselves.