Smile Protocol

We often feel the need to show only a perfect facade of ourselves and our lives. Every gesture, every shared image, functions as a mask that responds to expectations, while what has been lived fades into the background. A constant tension arises between what is shown and what is felt: the contours of one's own self become diffused, and authenticity is fragmented under the pressure to please. In this effort to construct a being that others can admire, the self dissolves. What remains isn't a reflection of who we are, but a void formed by impositions and others' desires. The perfection we display becomes the loss of ourselves, and the one who should be the center of our existence disappears behind the mask that everyone can see.