I was observing a woman in the salon I went to. She was scolding her junior at work. I could see so-much anger and irritation on her face. But as-soon-as she turned to a customer, her expressions changed. She had a bright-smile. None-of-the two emotions was fake. It is how much of our emotions we would like to show and express to someone. How diplomatic we choose to be. The more formal we are with somebody, the more we hide our true-emotions or what we really want to say... the closer you are to people, the more you can be yourself... speak your mind, open-up your heart and lay bare what you actually feel, rather than layer it. But why are we always hiding our true-feelings? One is social conditioning. We are told to behave a certain way with strangers, outsiders, elders etc. And we are also not comfortable being judged for what we actually think or do. If we tell an acquaintance our true-feelings, he might judge us. He also might use it against us. So, we do not open-up with people we trust or people close to us. We do only where there's a comfort-level. I remember as a child I had gone with my friend to an aunty's house. She asked us if we were hungry and would like to eat something. My friend said no. Seeing her, even I declined the offer. But as soon as we got out, my friends said, 'Let's run home, I am dying of hunger.' When I asked her why did she refuse food earlier, she said, 'Acha nahi lagta what would aunty think of us?' We came back home and said, 'Maaaa! Bhookh lagi hai!' Isn't it interesting human behavior? Did you ever realize we live mostly not being ourselves