In taking time out each day to prepare my lessons, to teach classes and to evaluate what I have done and where I have been in relation to my university students often leaves me drained. I have been doing this for a long time, and find myself still doing this six years after I have retired. I get tired but I don’t seem to know how to let go of my role as educator, teaching about the human psyche, personality and relationships.
Do many years as teacher, confidant, counsellor, coach, sage and father figure make me wonder who I am under all of these roles. Of course a life at home, a family life only adds more and more roles into the mix. Once upon a time I added in athlete, musician and poet into the mix. Today? I don’t know who the hell I am anymore.
Sky Clad: Hmmm – who are you beneath the roles, beneath the personae that have defined you in schools, in the family and in the community? So tell me, who do you see when you look in the mirror?
Ego: A tired and graying man. I don’t really recognize the face as it seems to be much too old for my face.
Sky Clad: Well, I hate to break the bad news to you, but that face is your real face. So is the gray hair that is thinning out quite a bit in case you haven’t noticed.
Ego: Thanks, that was encouraging.
Sky Clad: Actually, that is good news.
Ego: What the hell do you mean by that?
Sky Clad: Think about it, you don’t have to wonder about who the real you is, what you see is what you get. There is no thirty year old body trapped within your body. Face it, you have a body to match your face, a body and face to match your years. No lies, no masks – just you. Of course you can let your beard grow again, but that really won’t make much of a difference, just a hairier version of what you see now.
Ego: That still begs the question of who I am beneath all the different roles I play. I’ve been reading up on some Jungian stuff and what is says about persona and the authentic person and individuation and projections and . . . well, at least some of it.
Sky Clad: I hate to break it to you, but some of that Jungian stuff you’ve been reading is just a bunch of New Age claptrap. Listen up a bit and I’ll see if I can shed a little light on the subject. First, if you take off your clothing, does it change who you are?
Ego: Other than being naked and probably left cold and feeling foolish, not really. I get naked from time to time you know, it’s not as if I’m a Victorian prude or something.
Sky Clad: My point, Putting the clothing back on doesn’t change who you are either. Clothed or skyclad, you are still you.
Ego: So far I follow what you are saying. So what exactly are you trying to say?
Sky Clad: Just this, your personae, the roles you play are all a part of who you are, they aren’t simply masks and mirrors hiding the real you. Of course you are more that these limited number of roles, you are all the other roles that you have fantasized about, thought about in your head.
Ego: You have to be kidding, you can’t be serious!
Sky Clad: Just think about it – why and how could I bullshit you. All I can do is tell you the naked truth. Ha ha, that was a good one – I’m naked telling the naked truth – a pun indeed.
Ego: Explain.
Sky Clad: What? The pun?
Ego: Geesh! No, this stuff about me being my personae AND my fantasies.
Sky Clad: Oh that. Well, as I was saying, you are quite a complex person, and a complexed person I might add, but that is a different topic for a different visit. I think you understand about the nature of personality how one is caught between the polarities of extraversion and introversion. Well, take that idea further. For example, you teach and are a teacher, but at the same time you are working behind the scenes as a learner, as a student.
Ego: So what has that to do with my fantasies?
Sky Clad: Just be patient. In your lived life you have been faithful to your wife – no sleeping around, no adultery. I guess you could say that you are an exemplary model of fidelity. Yet, you know that beneath your skin, you aren’t so exemplary at all. Even today you looked at some of the young women in your classes with lust, could almost visualize them without their clothing and began wondering what it would be like.
Ego: Still, I kept my dick in my pants and didn’t cheat on my wife.
Sky Clad: Because of a strong ego, you managed that. The point is, there is a part of you that is willing and ready to fuck just about any woman who smiles at you, and even some that don’t even know you exist. The adulterer is there and you know it.
Ego: Okay, I’ll admit to the truth of what you are saying. But everything, all of my fantasies?
Sky Clad: Yes, all of them. They are all telling you something about who you are. Your lived roles in the outside world and your repressed dreams and fantasies, you are all of these. There is no you that exists that doesn’t include them, all of them. That’s the problem with a lot of the quacks who claim to be therapists and analysts; they claim to be ready to help you find the real you, a you stripped of your personae.
Ego: Hmmm. I gotta think about this.
Sky Clad: Take your time; I’ll be back when you’re ready for more.