Masks over the Void

Our present culture seems to be downright obsessed with self-discovery. Whether in ever-new and ever-more self-help books, coaching sessions, therapy appointments, or (self-)presentations on social media – the message is always the same: Somewhere deep inside you, there is a “true self” — it may be hidden, but it is there. It just needs to be found — beneath layers of wounds, learned patterns, and societal expectations. 

Our task, so the promise goes, is to uncover the true self. The fact that this has turned into a veritable industry that ultimately doesn’t help us feel better in the end – we usually don’t notice. 

But what if the search for the self cannot succeed because it is based on a false assumption? What if the idea of a “true self” is just another mask — one of many masks we wear in order to create an image of ourselves that we can live with?

People have always searched for meaning — in faith, in ideologies, in relationships, in work. The underlying assumption is that such meaning actually exists. In some theories or belief systems, meaning (theoretically) exists outside the individual (e.g., in socialism); in today’s Western world, meaning is something that waits to be found. But what if such meaning neither exists nor can be discovered, but must be continuously created anew?

Life as such has no ultimate meaning, no discoverable significance. The meanings we assign to life are the results of our interactions and our decisions. Whether someone becomes an idealist, a nationalist, or something else entirely – or none of it – is determined by the reactions of others to their actions – and by their own choices. 

I can try something and have it affirmed; I find something good and identify with it — and the people around me reinforce that. Or the opposite. It is always a mix of personal decisions, trial actions, affirmation, lack of affirmation or rejection, reinforcement or weakening.

We adopt identities that feel coherent to us, that fit our story, and that are affirmed — or not, in which case we may change the context in which we move, or change ourselves. 

We can reinvent ourselves if something doesn’t suit us. That happens in every life – more intensely for some, less for others. 

Yet behind every (new) identity lies a certain risk: Identity has no fixed essence. It may remain for a while, but it always carries the potential for change, for redefinition. And isn’t that exactly what we keep doing in life? Some more than others.

The ability to use language has unbound us from direct behavioral responses and enabled us to think. We do not have to react immediately; we can come up with something. 

We are capable of naming any object — by using concepts, we can distance ourselves from the immediate spatiotemporal context. We can name things — and ourselves — and thereby relate to these things. In doing so, the meaning of things arises from the relationship we have with them. 

But, oh horror: Nature doesn’t care about meaning — nature simply is. Animals behave as they behave. But we ponder, we search for meaning, because we can. 

And then – and this is the tricky part – there is also ourselves. The detachment from things also allows us to distance ourselves from ourselves. Our parents give us a name; later we ask ourselves who we are. 

As mammals without language, we would simply behave. But through the ability to use language, we can ask ourselves questions. We can relate to our behavior through the use of concepts. Instead of just being, we can ask ourselves who or what we are — and who or what we want to be. 

We come from the inherently “meaningless” world of mammals, yet somehow have acquired the ability to ask what it all means. 

It means nothing, but we ask what it means. We don’t understand this, because we keep asking — simply because we can, and because our ability to think makes it possible. 

We don’t have to, of course (“Blessed are the simple-minded”), but many of us do — because we can — and then fall for the self-help literature, instead of taking one step further and realizing that none of this has inherent meaning. We only search for it because language enables us to assign meaning to things — and because we apply this ability to ourselves. 

Asking ourselves about meaning brings no further — and certainly no ultimate — answers, but we can’t help it. On the one hand, that may imply a certain freedom. On the other hand, it also means that we can torment ourselves with questions for which we will never find an answer. 

There is no authentic core waiting to be uncovered. Every time we think we have “found” ourselves, we have merely added a new facet or a new self-construction — shaped by feedback from others or by our own decisions (or likely a mix of both).

From this perspective, social media appear as the ultimate mirrors: The more we perform an identity, the more it is reflected back to us and perhaps affirmed by others. Our choices are formed, in part, by the affirmation we receive. We learn what is rewarded, what is ignored, and what is criticized.

But we see only reflections. The self is not something “internal,” but is formed in an endless cycle of feedback. The first reflections come from our parents when they say: “You are…” or “You did…” 

Basically, we receive our first assumptions about ourselves through the reactions of those closest to us when we are small. But we can hardly remember them. We remember later reactions. And by around the age of twelve at the latest, we begin to try out different roles. What is affirmed then — and later — becomes our conscious self-image. Earlier identities remain in the background as a kind of “imprinted shadow.”

We constantly adjust our self-image to the social mirrors that are held up to us — and social media puts this process into “turbo mode.” 

Identity is not stable but fluid and reactive — dependent on context and on the reactions of others. What we call “self-discovery” is often nothing more than optimizing or reinventing the mask that gives us the greatest advantage in a given environment.

Many of us cling to identities because the alternative — the realization that there is no fixed self — seems unbearable. If we accept that we are merely the sum of our changing decisions and experiences — what then holds us together? What makes us “real”? If we consist only of memories and habits, what are we then? Or who?

This fear is the foundation of modern lostness. The more we believe in the necessity of self-discovery, the more lost we feel — because no ultimate truth emerges. The more we try to find ourselves, the more we realize that every definition is temporary, replaceable, and ultimately constructed.

Maybe we should give up the search for a final self. Maybe it’s not about revealing a hidden truth, but about accepting that we are constantly reconstructing ourselves — and the more developmental demands there are, the faster this process goes. 

If I live my whole life in the same place and work for the same company, much less will change than if the composition of the people I talk to most often changes quickly, if I move more frequently, change employers, and so on. 

Instead of fearing the nothingness beneath our masks, we can view the ongoing change in our identity as a space of possibility. Life itself has no inherent meaning. Once you’ve understood that, it’s still worth living. If you assign meaning to life (by a decision), or if you don’t question the meaning you were born into, then life might become a little easier. 

In the end, it’s very unlikely that God exists. But it may still be helpful to live as if he did.

This text was by no means written as a “postmodern relativization” or an expression of “anything goes.” Quite the opposite. We must make decisions. We must justify our decisions. But there is no “true reference point” that we can find. There are “fundamental lines of thought” that are learned in our childhood and youth, that feel familiar (in the sense of habitual) to us. But these fundamentals have nothing absolute about them. They are not inherently better or worse than the fundamentals that young people learn today. There used to be fewer cars, now there are more cars. There used to be fewer migrants, now there are more migrants. The world isn’t necessarily better or worse just because it changes. The world changes anyway. 

When it comes to our orientation, it always requires a purpose: What for is this or that, what should this or that be changed for? There are no ultimate truths; even human rights or God, for that matter, are ultimately negotiable meanings that depend on consent. 

So, for example, we will not find a final answer to how much freedom is enough. We can know with certainty that in the face of unfreedom, more freedom is better. And then we commit ourselves, maybe take risks or even have to fight, and if we succeed, we’ll think for a while that history ends here — until history teaches us that it’s not that simple. 

If we absolutize anything, it is helpful as long as it is not yet the dominant idea. Once something absolutized becomes the dominant idea, it is almost certain that new monsters will emerge. 

We regularly struggle to recognize the damned balance. 

Was more freedom better in the face of unfreedom, more freedom is no longer better when the previously fought unfreedom disappears. But since we hardly recognize that, we keep going — and over-refine the demands. From an engagement against intolerance arises (anonymous) tolerance, and later the demands become so refined that one must communicate in such a prophylactic way that no one should even feel discriminated against — even if the corresponding identity has not yet been definitively defined or may change again tomorrow. Full inclusion is practically impossible.

Parts of our society appear so elevated above history that they don’t even realize they are turning inflated idealists into decision-makers who are completely blind to what actually holds a society together. There is no decency left in our culture. 

Even if it is highly unlikely that what is written in the holy books is true — it’s still worth sticking to them. Otherwise, as so often, we learn nothing from history. 

Or put differently: Eighty years of peace are too much — not because eighty years of peace could inherently be too much; peace cannot be “too much.” But because parts of us have lost respect for the horrors that can happen, and because other parts of us, in crucial places, believe they know better — and that across all ends of the political spectrum — new willingness for very old mistakes emerges, without anyone realizing it. 

At the end of the broomstick, the question of how it began or who started it will be an obsolete one. It is always social interactions that drive us — one behavior reinforces the other, and vice versa. The fact that these are interactions often goes unnoticed, because one can justify one’s own reactions quite solidly — by pointing to the rejection of the other’s actions. 

We always stumble together toward the abyss, and we fail to step out of the dynamic of stumbling. Outrage and moral lecturing condition and reinforce each other. It’s like a curse upon us — and every attempt to shake off the curse (“We can’t go on like this” vs. “Beware the beginnings”) becomes just another small impulse accelerating escalation and division.

If our self has no “authentic core,” but only older or younger masks, then those “false self-images” are, in a sense, not false at all, but real — precisely because they were (at the time) functional adaptations or decisions. The career-driven, the caring one, the rebel — these are not masks hiding a true self, but facets of who we were at a given point in time for a specific reason. So we don’t discover a “true” self, but rather an earlier version of ourselves. Looking forward, we “choose” or “construct” our masks anew, again and again.

Here a paradox emerges: Therapists or coaches like to invite us to “become who we really are.” But if this “true self” is only an approximation of an earlier version of myself (which I will never know exactly — because it was a long time ago, I was young, I don’t remember everything clearly, etc.), then the supposed “true self” is just another construction — one that is created through the therapeutic or coaching process itself.

Many people seek an endpoint in coaching or therapy, a moment of arrival — the point at which they finally know who they are, why they act the way they do, and what they should do differently in the future. But if identity is fluid, then “healing” is not a goal, but an ongoing act of reinterpretation.

This thought is surely frightening to many. But it can also be liberating — because if there is no fixed self to be found, could it be that the search itself is the actual problem?

Whoever searches for themselves finds nothing.

If all we can encounter in therapy are previous decisions and past adaptations, then the self is a process. And if the self is a process, then therapy or coaching is not about finding a truth — but rather about authorship over one’s own life.

If the previous considerations are not wrong, then they have far-reaching consequences for our (postmodern) concept of identity. If we accept that identity is something constructed, then we must also accept that what we call “self-expression” is in truth often a form of “performance,” essentially always taking place on a stage.

Social media amplifies this “performance.” Some of us curate “carefully crafted” identities by highlighting those aspects of ourselves that receive the most affirmation. What used to happen only in real social situations — adapting our mask to our environment — now takes place more or less in real time on a stage that is both global and digital.

In this sense, therapy and coaching on the one hand and social media on the other serve a similar function. Both offer mirrors, both support the (supposed) self-discovery — which in reality is an interaction-based self-creation or self-presentation. We cannot “discover” who we are, but we are good at adapting our masks — at first performing for others and thereby also for ourselves. Social media enables us to accelerate and refine the creation of our masks.

If identity is a continuous process of construction, then it is not about “finding” ourselves, but rather about recognizing that we are always in motion. We can let go of the fantasy of a “final arrival,” of an “ultimate solution” or a “final acknowledgment and letting go.” We could then accept that we are constantly evolving and that every significant choice we make changes our identity. It means understanding that neither our past defines us, nor our future. We consist of memories and habits, of the internalized reflections of those around us, of our decisions — perhaps even the decision to look for other mirrors.

Instead of seeking an ultimate truth, we could ask ourselves:

• Which identity am I reinforcing with my actions?
• What meaning am I currently creating for myself by acting the way I do?

So far, we have examined only the individual level. Our own personal identity may indeed be more “fluid” than we assume. 

If we live in more or less continuous environments, where our mirrors hardly change, the dynamic of change is limited. Then we may indeed have the impression of a relatively constant identity. But if we live in dynamic environments with shifting challenges and further dynamize our mirrors by being active on social media, we should not be surprised if, after a number of years, we barely recognize ourselves. 

When this dynamic emerged, Richard Sennett once described the developments he observed at the time as “Corrosion of Character”. If one wants to see character as something stable, then a certain “liquefaction” or “acceleration” has indeed been observable since then. 

Even though the search for the “true self” is an illusion, that doesn’t mean this illusion has no real consequences — quite the opposite. With the increasingly individual construction of identity comes a popularization of narcissism, which ultimately causes narcissism to no longer be just a trait of individuals, but to increasingly become the societal norm.

Somewhat exaggerated, the question becomes: What happens when the search for the self becomes a social necessity — when everyone is expected to constantly optimize and present their identity?

From Self-Discovery to Self-Staging

The moment we accept that identity is constructed, it also becomes clear that identity is increasingly subject to competition.

In a world where we define ourselves through our choices — through what we reveal and how we reveal it — the pressure grows to actively shape our self-presentation. Social media are not just amplifiers of identity — they are a veritable “battlefield” for identity confirmation and reinforcement.

The process follows a certain logic:

• Identities are no longer predetermined by tradition, religion, or fixed social roles — we have to create them actively.
• If identity is no longer given (by birth, faith, social structures, or groups, etc.) but instead chosen or created and presented on social media, then its value is determined by external validation — through likes, followers, and the feedback of others.
• The most affirmed identities become role models that others imitate, leading to an escalation of self-staging — a race to become even more unique, more inspiring, or more visible.
• Over time, identity transforms from a private experience into a public spectacle.

The result: A society in which self-worth is no longer defined by an inner experience, but by the successful performance of self-presentation.

In the end, egos lie completely exposed, and even the smallest triggers are enough to escalate. One’s own children become part of self-realization. In a conflict, apologies are only offered if the other side apologizes too; the negotiations for such apologies become longer and the reasons more trivial. 

Traditionally, narcissism is understood as an inflated self-image, a need for admiration, and a lack of genuine empathy. But the new narcissism described here is different — it is structural.

Modern life has created perfect mirrors – social networks and algorithmic reinforcement constantly reflect back to us the latest or most rewarded versions of ourselves.

This leads to two dangerous dynamics:

• Identity inflation: The pressure to construct ever more grandiose, impressive, or emotionally gripping versions of the self in order to stay relevant increases.
• Validation addiction: A dependence on external recognition, where self-worth no longer arises from individual actions but from affirmation.

What happens when every person must “prove” their right to exist not only to friends or family but to a global audience?

The result is a world in which identity must be constantly “performed,” a world in which narcissism is no longer just an individual trait or disorder — but the dominant social condition.

The paradox is obvious: We live in an age that glorifies authenticity, yet we exist within systems that make authenticity impossible. The demand to “be real” is commercialized. Every “open” confession, every “honest” reflection ultimately becomes a performance aimed at validation. Vulnerability becomes a commodity. What used to belong to private reflection is now staged for an audience. There seems to be no way back from the realm of mirrors. Even withdrawing from social media or consciously refusing public self-presentation is still an identity choice — a choice observed and interpreted by others. We are caught in a spiral of narcissism, in which the constant striving for affirmation does not lead to fulfillment, but only to an even greater need for affirmation. 

If our self-images already lay like masks over nothingness, we have now installed a turbo whose roar and rumble distract us even more from possible insight. 

Nietzsche’s “Übermensch” was meant to be a figure freed from external constraints — an individual who creates their own meaning in the absence of religious authority — a wheel that rolls from within itself. 

Have we perhaps reached the opposite extreme in the age of hyper-performance?

We are not liberated – we are trapped between our mirrors:

• The more we seek meaning in self-construction, the less real our self feels.
• The more we seek external validation, the hollower our inner world becomes.
• The more we refine our masks, the clearer it becomes that there is nothing behind them.

If there is a way out of this spiral, it does not lie in another self-concept, another mask, or a new audience. 

We must explore what it means when meaning is merely another option. If we can’t return to a fixed identity — if we can’t flee to a world where meaning is predetermined — where do we go then?

The Hollow Labyrinth

In the past, meaning was “inherited.” It came from tradition, culture, from faith. One was born into an existing system of values and beliefs. Meaning was not a personal choice — it was received, carried, and passed on. But today, meaning — like identity — is radically self-determined. We choose meaning.

At first, this feels like liberation. We are free to define our purpose, to create our own “narrative” that gives direction to our life. But then comes the realization: If meaning is a choice, then meaning is also arbitrary. And if meaning is arbitrary, then every path we take — every philosophy, every belief, every identity — may eventually collapse under its own weight. There are no “grand narratives” left to help when we stumble. I stumble alone. If “my narrative” is enough to get me going again, fine. If not, then that is my problem. Period.

Instead of an open field full of possibilities, we find ourselves in a hollow labyrinth — an endless loop in which every door leads back to ourselves. Perhaps we search for truth. But we suspect that every truth is just another mask.

In the end, there is no way out. The exit remains blocked. The modern individual stands at the center of this hollow labyrinth — overwhelmed and crushed by possibilities: Every decision carries infinite alternatives within it — and thus the weight of all that we didn’t choose. Every commitment, every choice feels fragile — because we know that we could have chosen differently.

This is the paradox of absolute freedom: Without external limitations, without a certain purpose, every decision seems somehow empty.

This is where something begins that can best be described as “existential exhaustion.” How do we respond to this existential exhaustion? 

Some plunge into endless self-reinvention — hoping that the next self, the next meaning, the next identity will finally feel real. Some seek distraction, numbing the awareness of their own emptiness. Some recognize that no choice will ever be truer than any other.

Still others double down. They refuse to accept the emptiness. They seek an answer strong enough to silence the doubt — and become “missionaries,” trying to convince others of what they have found (a “truth,” an ultimate meaning, a “correct” ideology). In the zeal of enlightenment, and in all the conflicts that come with persuasive pressure, the doubts fade, are silenced.

The endless labyrinth of choices is unbearable for many. And so they construct their own walls, between whose battlements they can present themselves — with moral superiority, ideological absolutism, with extreme beliefs:

• If anything is possible, then the only way to defeat doubt is to reduce the options.
• If identity is fluid, then the only way to feel real is to bind oneself to an identity so rigid it cannot be questioned.
• If meaning is arbitrary, then the only way to feel anchored is to choose a meaning so absolute it cannot be doubted.

This is why we experience — in an era of “radical self-definition options” (“anything goes”) — the simultaneous rise of ideological extremism and hyper-rigid worldviews. The more fluid identity becomes, the more people long for values and ideals that are unshakable. The more arbitrary truth becomes, the more people search for irrefutable, indisputable maxims. The more exhausted we become, the more we long for a world with limited options.

Faced with infinite possibilities, the seductive way out is not “more freedom” — but submission to something greater than ourselves.

At first, the possibility of constantly reinventing ourselves seems like the ultimate liberation: We are no longer bound to old identities. We are no longer trapped in social norms. We are no longer burdened by history, tradition, or obligations. 

Theoretically, we are completely free to be whoever we want to be.

But here lies the paradox: The more we reinvent ourselves, the more we realize that there is no final version of us: Every self we create is just another variant we could discard again. Every choice we make is just one among countless others we could have made. Every reinvention is only temporary — because the next one is already waiting.

Instead of becoming someone, we remain trapped in pure becoming. We do not exist as something solid — we exist only in the act of self-creation. This is not freedom. It is just a cage without walls, a prison of mirrors, where every reflection is a possibility.

This leads to a fundamental problem: If every identity is a mask, then what does it mean to be authentic? Can we choose “authenticity”? And if it can be chosen, what makes authenticity any less artificial? Can we discover authenticity? 

But what if there is nothing to discover except more masks? Does authenticity mean being “true to oneself”? But what if this “authentic self” is just another performance?

We live in a time that idealizes “realness” — while simultaneously creating infinite tools for self-stylization, self-marketing, and self-manipulation: We present versions of ourselves online. We change our personalities based on social feedback. We adapt our beliefs, desires, and values to the frameworks we want to fit into.

And yet, behind all of it remains the nagging feeling that nothing solid exists beneath the performance.

Nowhere is this dynamic more apparent than in social media culture. On platforms like Instagram, TikTok, or LinkedIn, people are not simply themselves — they are brands of themselves:

• The influencer who presents herself as a wellness guru and claims to have found her “true calling” — and sells an online course so you can find your “true calling” too.
• The entrepreneur who “lives authentically” — but optimizes every post for maximum reach.
• The artist who “creates from the soul” — while constantly analyzing algorithms for greater visibility.

The paradox is merciless: The more we try to be authentic, the more we must construct an identity that looks authentic. In a world where (almost) everything becomes performance, even the rejection of performance becomes a new performance.

This is the structural core of today’s narcissism dynamic: The self becomes the only stable point of reference. All meaning and purpose are filtered through the self. Everything — relationships, beliefs, actions — becomes a mirror of the self.

In its extreme form, this explains why narcissism flourishes in modern culture: If identity is flexible, then the only thing that matters is how the self is perceived from the outside. If meaning is arbitrary, then the only thing that matters is how the self experiences it. If values are fluid, then the only thing that matters is what benefits the self. Thus, self-staging replaces genuine self-reflection.

Instead of asking “Who am I?”, we ask “How do I appear?” Instead of being, we focus on being seen. Instead of finding meaning in something outside of ourselves, we look only within.

Charles Bukowski is said to have once written: “Find what you love and let it kill you.”

This is a brutal but profound insight: If meaning is always self-created, then the only way to escape the exhaustion of constant reinvention is to choose something — and more or less dedicate yourself to that “purpose.” If identity is always self-constructed, then the only way to feel real is to connect with something you allow to be greater than yourself. 

And that’s exactly what we no longer do: We no longer subordinate our own concerns; we articulate our concerns as equals — with our partners, our employers, etc. Or we even place our own concerns above those of others. If the common good — the purpose we should contribute to on the societal level — is not already lying dead in the field, it dies at the latest when we completely place our personal concerns above those of collective relevance.

We hardly let anything be greater than ourselves anymore. On top of that, sometime around the year 2000, we also began to submit to our children or at least raise them as equals. Freedom understood in this way leads to a consistent detachment from the collective and to endless self-searching — and almost certainly not to any form of fulfillment.

We lose ourselves when we drift through a landscape of endless options and endlessly reinvent ourselves: We need anchors. We need commitments. We need something strong enough to resist the pull of pure self-obsession.

That brings us to the final question of this text: What remains when there is no actual core, when we only line up mask after mask, and have also found the switch for the Narcissus turbo?

If we accept that identity is chosen and that meaning is constructed, and if we acknowledge that the self is fluid — then what can serve as an anchor? If we reject overly esoteric illusions of a meaning that must be found independently of ourselves, but at the same time also refuse to adopt a cynical nihilism, where does that leave us? 

The world we live in today is a world of arbitrariness. We design ourselves, we “curate” our performance. We are not what we want to be — we are what our likes make us. We can imagine all sorts of things without seeing what’s behind them. This apparent freedom is as intoxicating as it is exhausting. Because freedom without structure is just another form of captivity.

If everything is possible, nothing is meaningful. If everything can change, nothing is stable. If every identity is just a mask, then the act of choosing loses all meaning — then we are just curating our masks. If we cannot leave the labyrinth of mirrors, we must find a way to live within it. But how? Meaning cannot be produced like a commodity. It must have weight.

Many flee into dogmas — ideology, nationalism, extreme belief systems — that promise certainty. But that is just another mask — and one chosen out of fear. If nothing remains, there is always some damn system of beliefs. Just look at the political landscape, especially on the left: When the actual agenda is lost, substitute topics are found, and the associated opinions are defended all the more aggressively. In the end, the search for consensus, which is essential to democracy, is replaced by radical moralizing.

So what remains?

If it is true that life has no inherent meaning, we cannot ignore that. We must accept the meaninglessness — and act anyway. We create meaning ourselves — and not as self-referential masks, but through commitment to others, to a purpose we allow to be greater than ourselves. 

As long as the arguments in this text are not misguided, this seems to be one of the few answers that do not lead to paralysis or despair. 

It’s about finding something that is worth living for. Nothing is meaningful in and of itself if it’s only about the acting individual and if it costs the individual nothing. Love is meaningful because it sometimes demands sacrifice. Mastery is meaningful because it requires discipline. Purpose is meaningful because it demands dedication.

Meaning must have gravity. This sentence feels as if it came from another time, but it is helpful: Serve something greater than yourself. The way out of the trap of self-obsession is to focus on something other than the self: You are not that important. Hardly anyone really cares how well you stage yourself. The world does not revolve around your self-actualization.

And that, exactly that, is liberating.

If we let go of the need for self-construction, we can turn outward: Build something, instead of constantly reinventing yourself. Love others, instead of preoccupying yourself with self-love. Create, instead of just consuming. Dedicate yourself to something greater than yourself. The self will probably only become at least a little more “real” if it is given away.