Face is the Index Of Mind??Do you believe???

Priya_Mommy · Aug 7, 2009

Hello Ladies,
In our routine life, we come across a proverb "Face is the Index of Mind", but I certainly doesn't believe in it.

Face is the index of the mind’ is an old proverb that has undergone a sea of change and in fact a metamorphosis in the modern world. It is true that your face reflects your mood. When you are happy or joyful, your face radiates it and your activities are induced by your happy mood, through your smiles or laughs and through your intention to share and celebrate your happy mood with others; when you are sad or feel sorry, your mood is reflected by your dullness and rigidity, through the outburst of tears that you sheds, when you get isolated from the company of others and when you unusually resort to doping.

Though by nature, your face is endowed with or blessed with the ability of reflecting your feelings, it varies according to your age. When you are a baby or a child, your feelings are reflected quite naturally and also instantaneously get changed, when your mood is changed by the intervention of a third party. As you grow in age, you are somewhat slow in reacting to the given situation and so your face also reflects it slowly.

But in this modern world, due to various extraneous circumstances, you are forced to live rather mechanically or artificially; you are not living by your natural instincts, whether it be your [COLOR=#e47f13! important][COLOR=#e47f13! important]home[/COLOR][/COLOR] or it be your office.
When you are living at home in the company of [COLOR=#e47f13! important][COLOR=#e47f13! important]your [COLOR=#e47f13! important]family[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR] members, say your wife and children, you are natural in your behavior with your spouse and so your face reflects it in a natural way according to your mood or feelings, when you are romantic or angry. But, as a responsible parent, your behavior pattern changes when you are dealing with your children. Even though, you are filled with full of love and affection for your children, your face does not overtly expose or express it, since you do not want to create an impression that you are too liberal towards them. Similarly, when you are in an embarrassing economic situation, through your sublime or subdued behavior, you do not want to get yourself exposed lest it will affect your family members. Therefore, it goes without saying, even among your family members, mostly you behave rather artificially and in your day to day life your face does not reflect what you actually feel and so your face is not the index of your mind.
Your behavior pattern in the external world vis-à-vis third parties is entirely different and it is mostly artificial which you may call as [COLOR=#e47f13! important][COLOR=#e47f13! important]business[/COLOR][/COLOR] like, tactical, strategic, professional and diplomatic; it is needless to say that in the [COLOR=#e47f13! important][COLOR=#e47f13! important]course[/COLOR][/COLOR] of your behavior pattern with the external world, your face has no scope to express your natural feelings.
When you are a business man, in the course of any business conversation that you hold with your customer, your motive for profit predominates and your customer has no scope to gauge it from your facial expression;
Similary the facial expressions do change based on your role, responsibility, age etc..
So, face is not the index of Mind due to extraneous factors in the modern world.

SriVidya75 · Aug 9, 2009

Priya

Very apt topic.....totally agreed.....if people are good at controlling their emotions and reactions...they can never ever show on their face whats going on in their minds...

Face is the index of the mind...is applicable only for those people who cannot control their emotions, feelings or reactions

We would have come across so many such people who are very nice, smiling, saying all good things about us infront of us , acting very happy etc with their face all lightened up when they are with us...but in true case that is not the scenario at our backs...as we would have heard the horrifying complaints or thoughts they would have about us....

so this phrase is not applicable anymore in this world.....totally agreeeeed

Jpatma · Aug 9, 2009

Priya,
You have the ability to analyse.True we are not able to gauge the person just by looks or expressions. People cultivate the demeanor for some reasons or other, sometimes it becomes second to nature. When a person is with the customer they adorn different attitude while that is not the real self. We haveseen many indians put on accent when they speak english(most often they are still in India) but if we observe them carefully somewhere they will let it down. Same too with behaviour where they act sweet, but if you get them all of a sudden without their guards they will slip in their behaviour. Must catch them at that time.

Face is the index of mind is true but the parameters are behavior is not for a gain, the person is caught off guard & there is no pretence. As you said we now cultivate our behviour so face does not really reflect our mind.
Jaya

Priya_Mommy · Aug 10, 2009

Hello Srividya,
Thanks for you FB. Yes, I just want to show the same in this post. Unless we can't read through the minds, we can't predict what's cooking in thier mindsets. Becuase ppl are best at controlling emotions sometimes.

Priya_Mommy · Aug 10, 2009

Hello JPatma,
Thanks for your review comments.:thumbsup

Sriniketan · Aug 10, 2009

Rightly said...nowadays...maybe people are training themselves to be good actors..
What would be in their mind is the million dollar question nowadays?

sriniketan

lovleenkhurana · Aug 11, 2009

Face is the Index of Mind is the fact. Your face reflects whether you are artificial, cunning, naive, short tempered, congenial, classy almost everything about you. A good example of this quote would be salesmen selling products by reading the faces of their customers. In India, even a small vegetable vendor is able to make gains by reading faces of his customers.

This quote is applicable for the attitude of the people and not about their mastery of concealing emotions. As people change their face begins to reflect the changes. A next door school boy who looked naive and sweet, starts looking like a goon if he falls in a bad company. Therefore, I totally believe that "Face is the Index of Mind".

rajalakshmigopal · Aug 11, 2009

I agree with you Hema....Face is the index of mind.Our face reflects our innermost emotions and eyes are the great window to show our feelings to external world.

Thanks for your writeup!

Nithu · Aug 11, 2009

Nice write up
I agree, Face is the index of the mind. our face reflects our innermost feelings, but most of the times we used to hide it and put the mask for several purposes and we couldnt open our heart to all...

skalluri · Aug 12, 2009

I think in both ways it works.. sometimes our emotions, feelings, intensions come out just like that and our face just reflects them and sometimes we adorn with different attitude without showing our real self. It all depends on situation and our self.

Sujatha.