It Costs To Be Me

‘Being Yourself’ has to be one of the biggest challenges that people face in their lives. The ability to be ourselves from the innocent in age to the fully formed adult the world has come to know. It seems like a never ending conquering wall in which we must climb until we reach the top and shout ‘victory’. Our world, its cultures and societal structures consist of visual imagery and sweet rhetoric forcibly fed to us reinforcing an identity of who we really are.

In growing up we become the lab rat for some weird experiment. A symphony for advertisers in which we sometimes fall in tune with and dance to due to the richness of their beauty. After years of becoming accustomed, captivated and sometimes mind numbingly unchallenging, we too can believe that which has been presented to us is who we really are. Just as if the mirror off the wall were walking hand in hand with us as best friends rather than reflecting our true self. Before you know it it is not until you peel back the layers that what we see underneath can be really quite different.

Physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually we are on a journey and this journey is called life. Whether good or bad, life forms and shapes us into who we are today. Health, beauty, education, religion, relationships are just some of these branches which grow from us and form the fruit of their impact on us. Your choices play a big role in this shaping. Situations, circumstances and how we react to them emphasise who we become. Spiderman is a great, even though fictional, character that correlates with this blog post in its intended context. He clearly expresses that it costs to be yourself, your true self. This is very evident in the Spider-Man 2 movie.

Peter Parker was your average typical guy who was raptured in science. His benevolent relationship with his aunt May and Uncle Ben, perplexed relationship with Mary Jane, roller coaster friendship with Harry, scurrilous working relationship with his horrid boss Mr Jameson, unpopular lonely exterior were yet again some of Peter’s branches of life. After his spider bite and transformation into the infamous Spiderman, his life changed including all his branches.

SpiderMan 2

In living and trying to balance two separate lives an internal battle was created. The life of Peter Parker was both drastically and involuntarily changing in order to become Spiderman. All of the branches as spoken about above aided this internal war between Peter Parker and Spiderman. Peter could no longer hold fashion to the demands of Spiderman.  You can not be two people otherwise they will soon collide. Spiderman had a very different branch, he required the soul (mind, will and emotions) of Peter in order to defeat evil and save both the city and people therein. Peter’s soul and therefore his identity were in turmoil and at war on the battlefield. You can not be two people otherwise they will soon collide and one will win; which one is your choice.

SpiderMan 2 shows a season where SpiderMan loses his powers and Peter can once again live. His personal life had become a broken jigsaw puzzle and Peter’s soul was wavering. The heart and desires of Peter were enmity against the requirements of SpiderMan. He makes decisions based on what he wants rather than on that which he was newly becoming as SpiderMan. Some of those decisions prove fatal because it was going to cost Peter something; himself and sometimes we are not ready to count the cost of giving up ourselves.

Downward spiral in powers

SpiderMan is no more

To summarise throughout the rest of the film Peter has to make a choice; to live as he used to with a quiet, lonely and uninterrupted life or be the hero he has become because of change in his life. If you have seen the SpiderMan movies or read the comics then you’ll know he chose SpiderMan… but it cost him. I am not saying that he can not or will never be Peter Parker because that is not true but it costs him some of his branches in order to become who is really is.

To be your true self it will cost you something. This could be relationships, friendships, values and morals, jobs, health, beauty, religion, education, wrong thinking patterns, ritualistic behaviour; anything. The branches in our lives can sometimes have damaging effects but who you really are is what the world needs, not a form of you but a true identity. We all go through stages on experimenting and transitioning but if we become the person who we really are we must weigh up our branches and accept the reality that it will require all of us to be ourself.

The Alter-Ego Doorway

I just watched a FANTASTIC episode of Criminal Minds, season 4 and titled ‘Conflicted’. The BAU team are investigating deaths of frat boys being lured to their deaths at a spring break hotel, where a manager and janitor have a unique bond. The episode sounds like another ‘orginal’ episode of Criminal Minds but you should DEFINITELY watch it.

The thing that caught my eye on was the ALTER-EGO. Adam Jackson (played by Jackson Rathbone) had a horrid (horrid being a nice word) childhood; his mother suffered spousal abuse and she died when he was young. He then lived with his step-father who de-flected the abuse he gave Adam’s mother onto Adam. He would dress Adam up in dresses, touch him inappropriately and would beat him.

Adam

To cope Adam formed an alter ego named Amanda. Amanda became the more dominant personality within Adam. She protected Adam by taking over in his child-hood when Adam would suffer the immense abuse from his step-father. Amanda was stronger than Adam.

When Adam was finally taken away from his step-father and taken into foster care; it was finally over. He was away from his step-father and could finally break free, get help and start afresh. When older, Adam found a friend in Julie Riley (played by Susan Ward) who helped out or volunteered at the foster home Adam was in. He then went onto work for Julie who became his boss and hotel manager at spring break resort hotel. She looked after him as if he was her own. However suddenly deaths occured. Alpha male frat boys were being killed- tied up, raped and suffocated. Adam happened to find the 2nd victim after being asked to clean the room; which was really the crime scene.

It turned out that Adam was the suspected couple that the BAU were looking for. Adam and … Amanda. Adam’s alter-ego caused him to dress up as a woman, lure the frat boys into hotel rooms, tied them up, gag their mouths, put a plastic bag over their head for suffocation and also rape them. What Adam suffered at the hands of his step-father which alter ego Amanda took over to cope with now became the act upon Adam in his older life. Amanda had all power whilst Adam did not know what was happening, he was still the young child within.

Amanda

This fascinated me on multiple levels leading to one trail of thought… does what we go through (past/ present/ future) open a doorway to be opened to another personality?

Is an alter-ego personality really a personality of something else?

Is an alter-ego really another spirit?

Does an alter ego help us cope with things?

What is it???

Bringing into context religion, science, psychology, sociology, etc… What purpose does an alter ego serve and is life a doorway for alter-ego’s to be produced?

I found this very interesting. Amanda came because of what Adam went through but Adam was the ‘REAL’ person. Therefore who or what was Amanda?

This just fascinates me. Such an interesting topic I personally think?

At the end of the episode Adam/ Amanda is caught and she vows to protect Adam by completely taking over and Adam becomes no more. Dr Reid (played by Matthew Grey Gubler) keeps visiting Amanda, in a devoted attempt to find and bring back Adam. Dr Reid then quotes;

Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win- Stephen King

But SPIRITS are also real…

Ok… hold up, let’s take a step back. Am I really saying that an alter-ego is a spirit? Well the answer is YES! However I would like to say that it is a spirit for the better or the worse.

Think about it, even as children we play pretend, play make believe and even have imaginary friends. Even as children we create/ form these characters that are not actually real. In most cases these characters disappear but in some cases they don’t. Let’s get into this. Let’s talk about the great film (in my eyes) Hide and Seek.

Film: Scene from Hide and Seek

A father (played by Robert De Niro) goes to great lengths to help his daughter Emily (played by Dakota Fanning) by personally and professionally getting her the help she needs after witnessing her mothers dead body in a bath of blood due to her commiting suicide. He uproots and moves Emily to a new area, a new environment and everything as her progression was slow. Here we go… let’s get ready… Emily suddenly has an imaginary friend called Charlie. Her and Charlie are now the best of friends. However things become very strange. Cutting a lond story short, Charlie turns out to be her father… his ‘other side’, after he could not get over his wife cheating. Charlie formed, killed his wife and others, almost his own daughter.Does this not sound similar to my point about Adam and Amanda??? Once again another person with an alter ego.

However comic superheros are also know for having alter egos; Superman and Clark Kent, Spiderman and Peter Parker, Bruce Banner and the Hulk; Bruce Wayne and Batman, etc… These superhero’s have alter-egos but they aren’t bad. They are actually good. But then on the other hand we have some of the greatest characters such as Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; once again another alter-ego personality but a bad one in this case.

Not only has fiction constructed alter-egos but so has reality. Popstars including the talented Beyonce has Sasha Fierce, Nicky Minaj has many including Barbie and now Roman; even pop king Michael Jackson had Peter Pan.

What’s my point? What am I trying to say? Am I slating alter-ego and it’s research… NO. Am I saying people are possessed and crazy…. NO. I’m saying that an alter-ego is a spirit, spirit in the context of a personality looking for a body then making itself known. An alter-ego to me is a new nature. We call it a character, a trait, an action similar to ourselves or a hidden part of ourselves; regardless it is a nature. Something we aquire to do.

Biblical references come to mind.

James 1: 8– A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

Luke 17: 33– Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.

In both Criminal Minds and Hide and Seek, both parties lost their lives to their alter-egos. The alter egos formed were dominant and took over, rather than hellping them cope with the bad hand that life dealt then it resulted in them losing their lives. A new nature is a good thing, it was never meant to be bad.

An alter-ego serves as a good and a bad thing. Life throws crap (being a nice word) at us. People suffer in un-imaginable ways and their life becomes no more- Adam Jackson from Criminal Minds being a fictional example. I’m sure we all know someone in reality though???

Circumstances and situaions we go through, whether we know or do not know- good or bad; will open up doorways. There’s always a consequence for everything we do, whether the offender or the victim. But don’t let the wrong alter-ego in. We can have personlity’s (and thankfully we do) but we should still be the person we are rather than creating something we are not.

Masquerade. Paper faces on parade. Masquerade, hide your face so the world will never find you.- The Phantom of the Opera

Don’t hide away too much…