No man can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true. – Nathaniel Hawthorne, as popularised in The Sopranos

there are times where i don’t feel real.

these spontaneous moments – instants of self-doubt – make my past actions, my emotions, my existence feel invalid.

its a strange feeling.

a multitude of questions pop up every time. what do i actually care about? what are my values as a person? are any of my emotions real? what am i doing with my short life? but most importantly, who the fuck am i?

despite how many times ive found myself asking these questions, i still lack an answer.

Carl Jung, a psychologist that i’ve held a grudge against since year 11 literature for being utterly incomprehensible, proposes the concept of a “persona” – an alternate personality we adopt to maintain some form of control over how we are perceived by others.

put simply, the “persona” is our outward self – the facade we put forth for social acceptance and alignment. it is inherently artificial, fostered by an intrinsic fear of potential rejection or judgement, a shield for inauthentic living. despite its protective qualities, reliance on a persona cultivates a internal sense of dysphoria, a mismatch between your authentic thoughts and your synthetic behavioral patterns.

if we were to continue this train of Jungian thought, your genuine self can be discovered only after discarding your “persona” – by consciously and intentionally aligning your behaviour with the moral standards you set yourself to.

sounds obvious right? just be yourself. duh🤓 but i cant help but feel that truly abandoning my facade is a monumental task.

i find myself with many different personas. so many, in fact, that i’ve completely lost my real self. some mornings i wake up and i don’t recognise myself in the mirror. there are some days where the human experience feels so alien to me, where the identity i’ve lived under for almost 20 years uncomfortably foreign. there are hours where i don’t feel in control of my own body, just watching the events of my daily life play out from the backseat.

its scary.

i don’t know who i am at all. i don’t even know how people perceive me, what my friends think of me, let alone what my “authentic self’ is meant to be. this leads to a pervasive sense of self-doubt – how can i possibly be secure in my sense of self when i don’t even know what my “self” entails?

a memorable (traumatic?) moment for me was when an ex-girlfriend said that she didn’t feel like she even knew who i was.

we had been dating for almost a year at that time.

her words struck me like bricks, and i didn’t have a response – i couldn’t. what was i meant to say to that, when i didn’t even know who i was myself?

if the person i had spent thousands of hours with didn’t even know who i was, how could anyone else have a clue?

i try to end these posts on a positive note, words of inspiration to provide some semblance of meaning to those who bothered to read my ramblings all the way to the end. unfortunately, there is no conclusion to this discussion, no upside, no magical cure.

thank you for reading to the end, i appreciate all of you.