A few days ago someone told me he just learned how to recognize a psychopath.
The method is simple. You look at the forehead to see if there are any wrinkles. If there aren’t any wrinkles, the person has no empathy, and if someone has no empathy, he or she could be “nuts.”
Will this wrinkle-reading method apply to young children? I don’t think so.
And do wrinkles on the forehead prove someone is NOT a psychopath? I doubt it.
But in some cases, how you wrinkle up can be an indicator. For example, if you smile a lot, this can often show up as “crow’s feet.”
Determining who is good and who isn’t just by their wrinkles is an intriguing subject, and it’s not new. In Ancient China, the practice was called xiang mian (相面), or “face reading.”
There is also something called phrenology, the study of bumps on the skull and what they reveal about a person’s character.
Being a plastic surgeon, what did Dr. Maltz think about this subject. Not much.
Personally, I studied Chinese face reading over 30 years ago. I especially enjoyed learning that if you have protruding ears it is a sign of great musical talent and ability.
My ears protrude much further than the norm, and yet my musical talents remain latent. As for superstar musicians, I’ve seen plenty whose ears don’t protrude at all.
Another good one is whether or not you have prominent cheekbones, something frowned on in China but considered glamorous in the west. I looked at the cheekbones of our politicians. Some, such as Hillary Clinton, have bulbous cheeks – others, not much at all.
Then I looked at chins. A big chin supposedly means you aren’t sensitive to criticism and can “take one on the chin.” Jay Leno has the biggest chin I’ve ever seen, does that mean he is immune to criticism? Or that he can get struck with a prize fighter’s knockout blow and laugh it off?
It’s interesting and intriguing to learn about these ideas, but a much bigger factor, the factor that determines your future is your self-image – what you are picturing on the screen of your mind.
Altering and adjusting how you see yourself is the most important ball game of them all because the external is a reflection of the internal.
Focus on the inner and the outer will take care of itself. What your inner face says about you will show up on that outside, revealing what was on your mind.
Matt Furey
