Mask

 

I went to Costco today and stood behind a man in his early thirties wearing a mask perched on the top of his shaved head. The ID checker asked him to cover his face with the mask and he responded in an agitated manner asking the checker why. The store employee responded respectfully but firmly, that it was company policy and the customer would not be allowed in without his face covered. The man pulled down his mask, leaving his bald head exposed to contracting the virus, and walked into the store disgusted with the situation. I already had my mask properly in place and was waved through.

So, what is it about people and masks that creates so much angst? Do people feel somehow diminished if their faces aren’t exposed for the world to see? It didn’t bother the Lone Ranger or Zorro to wear a mask, they embraced the look. Batman, Spiderman, and a host of others wear masks and it certainly hasn’t hurt their images. I think this resistance to the mask boils down to two basic human flaws, vanity and lack of empathy.

Men and women spend billions of dollars every year on products to help improve their looks. Hairdressers and barbershops may be closed but people still go out of their way, risking life and limb, to buy a bottle of hair dye or a DIY haircut kit. Seriously, if you’re quarantined in your house does it really matter that the gray is showing or the neck hair is protruding over your collar?

Okay I get it, after all this time and money spent transforming yourself into a stunning, radiant, work of art, you now have to cover that glow in the dark smile with a mask. It’s so unfair!

Time for a reality check. No matter what you do to your face be it a beard, mustache, clean shaven, multi colored makeup, the works—99% of us are the same as the person standing next to us, no better or worse looking, regardless of the prep work. The mask creates a commonality that people’s egos can’t accept.

The second part of the equation is a true lack of empathy toward our fellow humans. A man is asked in a commercial if 50 would be an acceptable number of deaths per year caused by hit and run drivers, he agrees that it would be. The announcer then asks 50 of the man’s friends and family to step out—he changes his acceptability estimate to 0. If a person hasn’t had first hand experience with this disease then the virus is no more than a talking point on nightly news. When an elected official tell his constituents that the elderly should be willing to die to keep the economy going, how can anyone expect a common person to feel any different? Maybe attitudes would change if a government official knocked on every door and asked the resident to select 10 of their relatives to be taken out and sacrificed to the virus, culling the herd so to speak. Maybe the man at Costco would have a change of heart if he was told his mother or father would have to be sacrificed because of his cavalier actions.

Of course, this is all conjecture, and nothing written here will have any impact on the way people behave. We will continue to primp and prune to bolster our own ego and remain indifferent to the dangers we may be placing others in as long as we’re not inconvenienced. Just remember, Thor didn’t wear a mask because he is a god and can’t get sick—almost all the others did.