Multiple Selves

“Who am I?” “What is the meaning of life?” 

These were questions that my college friends and I, who thought too highly of ourselves (hallucinating about being intellectuals and intimate with the philosophy of existentialists), asked. In my time, to be deep was to be on a self-erected pedestal. Shallowness was a dirty word. 

It did not take long before I spiraled down to the ground with a thud. I got married and took a straight path back to the faith that has defined for me the meaning of life. 

That does not mean, however, that I have shunned those kinds of books. I read them still (especially now that the pandemic gives us all the time to reflect and ponder), but not in the context of being deep. It’s in relation to my faith journey. 

During this crisis, one reads online narratives of how people see themselves, and how they want the world to see them, perhaps also trying to find the meaning of life.  

One post struck me: the art of my friend, Lorenz. Coincidence? In one image, he summarized for me what I was reading, David Lesters’ On Multiple selves. 

Each of us has facades, masks, or false selves (depending on the place or occasion) that obscure our actual self. Lorenz’s face dramatizes this familiar chart, which I took the liberty to modify, based on my personal observations. 

Every human being, even kids, possess multiple selves. Try observing a grade school campus from the time parents drop off their kids to the time they pick them up. Within a few hours, inside and outside the classroom, they can turn into purring kittens, barking dogs, snorting pigs, laughing hyenas, howling wolves, gentle lambs, melodious birds, etc.

Is having multiple selves a bad thing? 

We have rules of behavior in various situations, don’t we? We need to behave differently in parties, Zoom meetings, government offices, and church. 

But here's a note to my actual self: wherever you are and whomever you are with, “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Colossians 3:17 NIV)