The Many Me's of I

We have been here before.
We stayed, we collided, we conversed but nothing really came of it all.

“You, my dear, are absolutely brilliant! A truly amazing talent. You’re going to go places,” the strange old man says to us.

We never really know what to make of such obvious compliments. “Going places” what does this mean? Does this mean we will be travelling and globe trotting as we hope to do; does it mean we are to be famous and successful; does it mean we need to find direction or does it mean that we are actually falling for such blatantly contrived flattery?
The old man is successful and famous and he thinks this is what we want from our life – overwhelming success, fabulous fortune and glittering fame. He asks us why we want to be a writer and we tell him that writing is the only thing that keeps us honest, sane…remotely human. He asks us why we haven’t made the most of our talent as if he has the right to demand our answers on the subject. We tell him that we are unwilling to compromise our vision and art for a ‘viable market’. He asks us if we are content hiding our ideas on paper instead of selling them and seeing them come to fruition in some form or the other – and we tell him that if that realisation means cheapening and tainting an idea that is good then yes we are happy to keep our head down.
He asks us how we intend to survive in this world without the hunger and ambition to be the best. He tells us we already are the best. We decide that we really do not like this man, because his manipulation lacks finesse. He wants us to want something we don’t over the something that we do. He is a horrible flirt at seventy and we are not amused. He thinks he can buy us by offering us a better pay package for working on a project that lacks both merit and vision and we refuse him.
We do not feel proud for standing up for our selves.
We are numb, our art is all we have left and we are not yet ready to completely disregard ourselves.

The me in us that enjoys her perky facade smiles at this new regressive reality that is forcing us into newer, uglier corners. She, the Sprite, is listening to a lot of old eighties rock anthems these days to enhance her layer of frivolity and appears to be succeeding. She is ridiculously smiley and tends to project a distinct bounce in her step for the express benefit of random acquaintances that cross paths with her in the elevator.

The me in us that acknowledges the effort that goes into projecting our bubbly self has grown more quiet than usual. She, the Hermit, slumps her shoulders forward on her desk at work and stares at the monitor in a manner that ensures a tangible disconnect from her surroundings, her 24-hour shift of designating denial coupons to several random actions is operating smoothly. She has her headphones plugged in and is numbing her emotions and senses with unhealthy doses of Tom Waits and Pete Seeger. She is reading Seneca these days to simultaneously numb her mind. She is painting yellow, magenta and turquoise swirls in oils to numb her spirit from scoping the stars.

The me in us that depends on her morbid cynicism and biting quips to deflect attention, affection and affiliation is working at her usual pace. She, the septic Circe, is slightly downplayed by our resident hermit these days but is always available to negate any offering of good will and compassion directed towards our person.

The me in us that controls primarily our higher brain function (with most of us being frigid and all) is exhausted by her perpetual propensity to please, provoke or procure answers from random sources. She, the pithy Pupil, is on a constant quest to find answers to unnecessary questions. Pithy also faces the added discomfort of never really knowing if this inherent trait of hers emerges from her need to appear smart, her actual desire to learn new things or her inordinate incapacity to filter out the abstract from the apparent.

The me’s in us that tend to drive us into most of our headlong hazards are preoccupied with perfection and penance, or some Utopic notion of both. Beentherella, the incurable romantic, cannot settle for the real over her sublime version of the surreal. She highlights us all as naive, idealistic, “lets-talk-glass half-full”, 'off to find our Happily-Never-After-ending' fools. Beentherella is a twin, her other half being the jaded Succubus that dashes all hopes of the rest of us ever listening to her in tandem. Which is why there are so many warring factions among our self. Succubus lives-glass-half-empty and Beentherella talks-glass-half-full as we all fall down.

We are frightened these days because a dangerous other has entered our midst. She is not one of us, a cold, granite creature riddled with guilt and fuelled with noxious anger. She is rather hideous really, far worse than Succubus who still possesses some nuance of reactionary charm. This new grim reaper Medusa is frightening. She shuns us all, we who have lived here for twenty four years, and is vying to take control of our self by banishing the rest of us into some dark hidden corner of that most-dreaded, dead drop, oblivion: Memory Lane.

She is powerful and persuasive.

Like we said, we have been here before but somehow our paths have never crossed.
But now that they have, rest assured we shall stay, we shall converse and we shall keep colliding until she is defeated.