I am realizing that I have this on-page, or writer self, which is so much more optimistic than I am. It is obviously a new sub personality that I have acquired since, I guess, starting my facebook account and posting every day. I think I am becoming addicted to her, as she is so upbeat and outgoing and generous and smart. She is wiser than I am, and wittier, and she seems to have more friends (well, she and I share a lot of them, but they seem to like her more) and in the mean time, what has happened is that I have become the "evil twin," carrying all of the darkness--all of OUR darkness, that is.
Is the burden double now that I have "her" too? It seems like that (I’m awfully grumpy), but maybe it’s just easier to see the sub strata of my own inner life now that she gets all the shine and gleam. I imagine that this is what celebrities experience--a heightened sense of their split nature and possibly an addiction to that polished, “charming” public face—OK, in my case it’s not THAT charming—but still, isn't this JUST what we don't want to happen as we age? Aren't we looking for more integration, not less?
I guess there is a bright side: I can see my darkness more clearly now, and also that I have had this private/public split all along. Maybe the real opportunity for integration comes when we truly take a good, long look at this. I know that I am finding this "long look" difficult, and consequently I am, of late, having my own inner (and outer . . . apologies to my family) temper tantrum. However, I would LIKE to think that this is not merely a neurotic impulse, but the impetus I need to actually, finally, make peace with the fact that this person I am--flawed and aging and full of contradictions--is just normal. That this is what it means to have a personality: something to take care of, to manage, to have compassion for, to sometimes applaud, and to sometimes put to bed early when it needs a time out. In other words, I think that by seeing the darkness AND light of "me"--the constructed reality of the whole, dang self --I may be able to begin to dis-identify with ALL of my personality--sub and otherwise. The dark and the light, the good and the bad, the charming and not so.
Because of seeing how much power facebook Liz has (and how seductive her little two lines of happy chat has become) I’m tempted to take a break from her realm for a month and WRITE instead . . . REALLY write. I'd like to let "Dark Lizzie" have a go. I intuit that she has a lot to tell me, and that it might just be her turn to shine. I’ll let you know if that happens. In the meantime, as the old song goes, "I’ll (we’ll) be seeing you in all the old familiar places.”
loving the whole Liz...insightful.. beautiful..
ReplyDeleteWell thanks, Ken. I'm glad you enjoyed it, and I love the whole Ken, too.
DeleteI'm sorry that I never acknowledged that you had visited my blog. Being a reformed Luddite, I forgot that blogs HAVE comment features and overlooked looking at them! Silly me.
I really love what you have to say, a lot of this is pulsing through me too, and thanks in part to Mark Zuckerberg - and in part thanks to that river that's moving toward an End instead of toward an ocean. Mortality is a pretty good midwife.
ReplyDeleteEven with the thanks, a month off of Facebook seems like a generative thing - maybe in cycles... I'll be off Facebook when it gets a LITTLE SUNNIER!
I hope that integration is not about lobotomy - or any kind of excising.
Love Jennie
Jennie, In case you ever get back to this page, and to this post, I want to apologize for not commenting on your comment. I honestly didn't notice the comments until now (obviously I am not a seasoned blogger and kind of forgot that it, like Facebook, could be (should be!) a conversation.
DeleteAt any rate, I'm glad you enjoyed my little exploration of the Facebook identities we all create (or maybe discover) in this new, virtual playground.
I've always loved the whole Liz. it is interesting to just write and then see what has come out. I write most of my stories that way and then focus them later. I know that a lot would never surface with any other method. Love, ya-DAD.
ReplyDeleteAnd I love you right back, Pops. xo
DeleteI'd missed this one. That's a biggie!
ReplyDeleteI mean, even when I'm most honest, publicly, and I mean in whatever writing etc you like and appreciate so, and I do to, that has come out of my pen, there is this mess of a person who eludes the pen and sort of continues to make a lie out of everything...a sort of "Pigpen", but not just physically...morally and psychologically, too.
Frankly, I don't like to think about it. But I do sometimes. Frankly, if I described "the real me"...well, he's not enlightened. Not even interesting. Desperate, desperate to be liked, not to be alone, to feel safe and secure...willing to be completely fraudulent if he can insure any of those, for even a little while.
But heck, Mark Zuckerberg, he's supposedly a thief, himself!
I'll consider all this some other time. Forget I said it. I'll try to forget, too.