The Costume Party Of Life

Life loves its dress codes. Sometimes they’re obvious—black tie, business casual, masks during a pandemic. Other times they’re subtle—status symbols, job titles, the right words said at the right time. These things become the “ticket” that lets us through the door.

But here’s the trap: if you obsess over the dress code, you miss the party.  
Masks weren’t the party. Arguments about masks weren’t the party. They were just costumes, background conditions of the moment. People turned them into the whole conversation, forgetting the human core—the interactions, the energy, the dance of presence.

Resistance plays the same trick. Refusing the costume doesn’t make you free; it just inverts the game. You’re still centering the mask, still caught in the dream.

The sovereign move is to see the costume as just that—a prop. Not sacred, not evil, not the story itself. You wear it or don’t, but either way, you don’t let it eclipse what really matters: the real encounter, the actual living, the connection that breathes beneath all props.

Everything society throws at us—money, roles, labels, traditions—is another costume. They’re tickets, sure, but never the essence. The essence is what happens once you’re inside: the glances, the rhythms, the sparks.

Don’t mistake the mask for the dance. Move with life, or not at all.