Being Self-Ish

"Whuddya Gonna Do?"

Reverting to the subject of my self (which I’m sure everyone finds endlessly fascinating) I’ve identified seven major aspects or avatars. They seem quite distinct to me, though there is some overlap and interaction between them. The ancient Greeks might say they were the gods riding me; the Medievalist the vices and virtues contending for my soul. Modern psychology (or what passed for it thirty years ago) might say they weren’t yet individuated parts of my psyche; ordinary people that they’re just moods I go through. Whatever they are, let me introduce them to you. I present them fancifully clothed as what I like to call the ‘Internal Me,’ since they are concepts, and to show a Me in real life is just too sad.

I’d like to start with a very basic character, the Bored Me. He doesn’t want to move, just vegetate and ruminate. Sloth might be my besetting sin. It is a mood that, as C. S. Lewis said, “You [a devil] no longer need a good book, which he really likes, to keep him from his prayers or his work or his sleep … You can make him waste his time … You can make him do nothing at all for long periods. You can keep him up late at night, not roistering, but staring at a dead fire in a cold room.”

Next on the rung, only slightly better, is what I call the Earthy Me. He’s physical more than metaphysical. If he can’t get barbecue he’ll settle for hot dogs and enjoy them. He dreams about great meals he’s had and plots about the possibilities of great meals to come. He’s not simply food-centered, though; he’s concerned with keeping the house clean, staying on budget, and to a certain extent, health. Mechanical, worldly things are his province.

Up quite a few rungs is Family Me. He’s concerned with the welfare of the family, and to a certain degree the world. He wants everyone to prosper, to be safe, to get through life smoothly and happily. He does not have much power to do this, especially now-a-days, but what he can do he will do, be it cooking a meal or sewing up a tear in a shirt. He is mainly altruistic, but not without a certain element of “Happy Family, Happy Life.”

Then there’s Nerdy Me, the smarty-pants. He would be in danger of the sin of Pride if his own inadequacies and blind spots weren’t a constant check on his assertions. But he can be quite stubborn about what he’s sure is true and is always ready to champion his affections and enthusiasms. Not from any personal stake in the matter but as a Quixotic, almost romantic attachment to what he sees as true.

There’s a Me I’ll call euphemistically the Bawdy Me. Whenever he sticks his horns out, he tends to shock even people who know me well. I like to think I keep him quarantined behind a stone wall, but lately I’m wondering if it’s not so much a prison as a stronghold from which he sallies forth periodically to take prizes and bedevil the other Me’s. He’s growing a strange garden behind that wall.

Of course, the Bawdy Me is of concern to the Pious Me. In some ways the Pious Me is a great worrier: worried about getting to church, going to confession, receiving the Eucharist worthily. On the other hand, he has great peace of mind as long as he tries to improve and not get complacent. He believes that God has the power to save and prays constantly for the family. He does not believe his favorite sins are okay just because he likes them.

Last, we have perhaps the one I like best, the Creative Me. When the Creative Me is in charge, the self seems to go beyond time, indeed forgets itself in the act of making. He seems to participate in all my selves, or at least their better parts, if only to use them as grist for his mill. When he’s at his best he’s not thinking about wealth or fame but only feeling sheer delight in the act. When he steps down out of the driver’s seat, I (the Me that is basically the seat) am usually left to marvel at an artifact that didn’t exist before. Oh, it may need work (that’s for Nerdy Me) but it seems a minor miracle. Perhaps when I’m Creative Me I come closest to my Creator, to Eternity.