The face as biography

Even before I began more formal studies of how people's identity is defined by their face, as well as expressed through their face, I was aware of it. The emotions you demonstrate for show--laughing when you don't find something funny, smiling when you're nervous or upset by a situation--these trigger a kind of feedback loop, making you, in actuality, feel the emotions as well as showing them.

In my coursework, I read of two situations of this sort that stand out to me. First, holding a pencil in one's mouth for a duration of time affects people's mood. The muscles used to hold just the tip of a pencil's eraser in a tiny 'O' formed by the mouth are the same required to frown. When a pencil is clenched between the teeth, parallel to one's face, the muscles are those used for smiling. In both cases, subjects' moods were [statistically] significantly affected by this simple exercise.

Secondly was the more profound study of a woman who was the recipient of a facial transplant. Well before the face was eventually rejected by her body, she began suffering from severe depression due, as was agreed upon by many a psychologist and psychiatrist, to an extreme confusion about her own identity. The person looking back at her from the mirror, she said, despite having the same bodily abilities, nevertheless came with its own personality, its own unique identity. Those of us who are sighted rely on faces, both those of others and our own, to define and individualize ourselves as human beings.

My point in this long prelude is that our face is not only a vehicle for expression, as we so desire, but is in fact a dynamic portrait of our own personality. And not just personality alone; it also speaks to our background, our experiences, our wisdom, our understanding, our emotions. Who hasn't looked into the eyes of another, and seen a wisdom far beyond our own, or incredible suffering, or uncontrolled longing? Part of why The Picture of Dorian Grey is so eerie is due to the title character's ever-youthful, ever-unchanged face despite his wicked life.

I stared into the mirror today and tried to identify what I could learn about myself from my own face. At the most basic, I saw I had a light shade of skin that would define me as Caucasian, yet brown hair and green eyes that probably rule out the possibility of Greek or Latin descent. I have wider jaw for which no one has confused for anything but male. A never-quite-invisible set of blemishes and a thick, pliant, oily skin shows me as still young, and sun-browning variation shows I spend time outdoors. A couple of small craters show evidence of an early case of chicken pox, while a reddish tint to my facial hair suggests a more complex ethnic heritage.

Which only amplifies my fascination with the topic. Analysis of a face can tell someone many things, but can suggest even more. Would anyone guess, from noticing the mildest of red tinges in seeing my beard in the sun, that I have some Irish ancestry ? And stranger yet, would they assume this as evidence of a broadly European heritage, or would they begin to suspect that perhaps my wider, flatter nose is due to some amount of African blood? Is it? How would anyone even know, at all, about my Native American ancestry?

The faint but visible lines from the outsides of my nose down to my chin, and the same faint lines forking from the outsides of my eyes, show that I've laughed and smiled much of my life. The furrows on my forehead show my history of curiosity, interest, and wonderment. Black bags and lines under my eyes suggest a lack of sleep, and the thin red lattices of bloodshot surrounding my pupils explain this as too much time spent working, but these actually stem from my unwillingness to let sleep interfere with my recreational pursuits. Some characteristics of a face are red herrings, it seems.