Personae
August 28, 2007
You’ve met me, or at least read me. You know that I am what I appear to be, right? I don’t think I’m fooling anyone. I’m not trying to. Not really. And yet, sometimes it seems like here I am this, and there I am that. Here I question, analyze, dive, risk. There I tell, demonstrate, entertain, amaze. Here I hide my face, my identity, but never my truth. There I show my body, my charm, but never my lack of confidence. And what of that other place? That place peopled with the creatures of my practicality seems less real than the others at times, but perhaps that is where I am most rounded, textured, immediate. There I can be touched, but can I be known?
Is there a purpose for the existence of these different “them” that are me? Is it all a desperate attempt to please you, the various “you” that see me here, and there, and in the other place? Would you know me if you saw me there instead of here? Would my brazen extroversion there make me unrecognizable? Or would my obsessive navel-gazing here surprise and repulse that other you?
This is what I tell myself: I need to be her, and her, and her, too, because they are all me. Oh, how facile. But all of those dubious qualities of mine, presented altogether, might be more than a little overwhelming, or frightening, or annoying, or something else that I don’t think you are prepared for. Or you either. Wherever you are. I need this, and this, and I need both to be fully separate from this. And then, if you don’t love this me, or that me… perhaps the other me will suit your fancy.
August 29, 2007 at 10:54 am
Most of us realise that everyone is multi-faceted. However, here, there or in that other place, we can only know those sides of you that you choose to present to us. So the choice is yours and others’ judgements and labels, while only natural, are ultimately fruitless.
August 29, 2007 at 11:15 am
So true, Ani. When it comes down to it, every “there” in our lives is another stage. Even still, few are ‘privileged’ with a view of more than one stage at a time.
August 31, 2007 at 10:10 pm
We must be wary of notions of true selves. Nevertheless, it is useful, I think, to privilege the consciousness as a truer self than external appearances. Self-expression can be relatively naked. I like the way you endeavor to connect to an audience as the self-questioning wearer of the mask, to an extent that it seems irrelevant how impressive the mask actually is. I wish we could all get to a level of honesty where impressiveness of display is irrelevant.
August 31, 2007 at 10:36 pm
Agreed on both accounts, Drodbar. The idea of the “true self” is problematic, since that seems to change from day to day, and depending on audience. Right, too, that external appearances are misleading in any case. However, it’s probably naive to think that we can disregard those appearances, especially when we consider external appearances beyond the physical. For example, I can only think I know you based on the words you have written, which are easily manipulated to create a specific impression… but that’s all I have.