a plural personas [New Latin, from Latin] : an individual's social facade or front that especially in the analytic psychology of C. G. Jung reflects the role in life the individual is playing — compare anima b : the personality that a person (as an actor or politician) projects in public :


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Bemasked I walk thru the world,
A stranger among my brothers and sisters,
Yearning to reveal myself,
Yet terrified to do so,
Lest I be rejected and cast away in exile…


Of book-learning and psychotherapy, there’s no dearth,
Yet, the pain and hunger and self-inflicted exile persists,
No balm of Gilead seems to lessen the mind-numbing ache,
Freud and Jung would be pulling their hair out…


And, so, we continue to walk thru the plain of desolation,
Our only companions on the journey, being other injured anthropoids,
Ever hoping, we wonder,
Whether we will ever stumble upon that elusive Shangri-La,
Or will we forever evade it?