The Self Theory
a recent musing on the many different selves i consider myself to have
1. THE EXTERNAL SELF
Or, the self one presents to strangers. This is the self I know the second-least about, and as much as it kills me, this will never and can never change. I can imagine how strangers might look at me, but my mind is always going to be biased against me. I can ask friends what they thought of me before we knew each other properly, but they’re always going to be biased towards me; they’ll filter out the negative so they don’t hurt my feelings, let their newly acquired opinions of me obfuscate the old, or just plain forget. I’ll never genuinely know what the person passing me in the street thinks I am.
2. THE MASKED SELF
Or, the self one presents to new friends, ideally ones you’d like to get to know better. The masked self is a facsimile of the known self with all the fat trimmed and the ugly parts sectioned off. This is me making my best impression; the masked self smiles at your jokes and makes none of its own, the masked self says “hahaha” instead of “sjkanjnkknf”, the masked self is quiet and polite and quite boring. Really, it isn’t the best foot to put forward. I feel like I’m being inoffensive and mild when I present the masked self, but in reality, I think I just come off as having no interiority whatsoever.
3. THE KNOWN SELF
Or, the self one presents to actual friends. The known self keysmashes when it pleases. The known self feels comfortable making offbeat jokes that might not land. The known self suggests activities. The known self wants to be friends with you. It’s the evolved form of the masked self, and honestly, there’s also a middle phase between the two where they may blur together imperceptibly and in differing ratios. The masked self might venture forward a personal detail or two one day, and depending on the reaction it receives, may either take one more step towards becoming the known self, or retreat further back into itself.
4. THE OVERFLOWING SELF
Or, whoops. Sometimes I misjudge who can be trusted with the entirety of my known self. Just as I reach deep into the coffers of the last of what I want to divulge to someone, I suddenly become aware that somewhere within the last ten minutes, without my knowledge, the known self has been hogtied into a broom closet and the overflowing self has taken control. Strange looks and snide comments and secret side-eyes of second-hand embarrassment may abound, but the known self can’t escape, there is nothing I can do to prevent the deluge of information the overflowing self has just let loose. All I can do is watch in horror as the floodgates open.
5. THE DEMONIC SELF
Or, your worst aspects in technicolour. This is the part of you that does the things you don’t want to do - the part that snaps at your mum for checking in on you too often, the part that pushes your dog out of the way when it’s being annoying, the part that snarks at your boyfriend instead of communicating like an adult. The demonic self also contains your worst fears, intrusive thoughts, and self-hatreds. Sure, it does all the real bad things the internal self doesn’t want its name on, but it also does the things that don’t really happen, the worst of the worsts that you imagine of yourself. The demonic self is an abuser, and the demonic self will never get better.
6. THE ANGELIC SELF
Or, your highlight reel in personified form. Your angelic self consists of all your best deeds. There is no sadness, no evil, no anger in the heart of the angelic self. The angelic self forgives. The angelic self forgets. The angelic self makes everyone else look like shit in comparison. You’ll constantly hold every other self up to the angelic self, asking why? Why? Why don’t you fit into this mould any more? What is my excuse? When the internal self is sick with anger, it comes with guilt by nature. I have avoided the temptation of anger in the past. What is my excuse now?
7. THE INTERNAL SELF
Or, how one sees oneself. This is fairly close to the true self, because I am privy to things about myself that nobody else is. On the other hand, it does seem fairly narcissistic to assume that my own perception of myself is closer to the truth than anyone else’s. Doesn’t everybody know someone who is so un-self-aware that it hurts? I’m terrified of being that person. Hell, I’ve been that person - the internal self and the known self couldn’t have been farther from one another when I was fourteen, for example.
8. THE PAST SELF (SELVES)
I’ll assume I don’t have to explain this one. The past self has subheadings; firstly, we have the whole past self, encapsulated essentially by the way people tend to boil down their younger identities into simplified, singular selves. These whole past selves tend to be locked away, only to rear their heads in moments of need (to laughingly say “Jesus, I was crazy in my teens”, or when your inner child needs some tending to). And then, of course, the reality of the past selves, and all of the disparate selves they contain - my thirteen-year-old self, sure, but also my thirteen-year-old known self (who was a lot more needy and embarrassing), my thirteen-year-old demonic self (who was a lot more evil), my thirteen-year-old overflowing self (who spent a lot more time in control than it does now).
9. THE ASPIRATIONAL SELF
I will never be the aspirational self. The aspirational self is everything I wish I could be, and not in a “maybe I’ll get more confident, maybe I’ll get less anxious, maybe I’ll study more” way. The aspirational self is fundamentally different from the true self, and yet I crave it so deeply. The aspirational self is a true academic. The aspirational self is five feet and eight inches tall. The aspirational self is not mentally ill. The aspirational self is all the good traits I see in others and can never seem to replicate - the true selflessness my partner embodies, or the enduring work ethic of my father. The aspirational self can be counted on. I like to think the aspirational self and the true self switch places, in another universe.
10. THE TRUE SELF
Or, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. This is the self I know the least about. The true self can never be viewed, because the viewer would need to lack all the most human qualities of bias, subconscious perception, and childhood conditioning. Nobody escapes all three, and thus, the true self can never be viewed. The true self may be its own separate entity, or it may be an amalgamation of every other self, or it may not be there at all. It’s sort of like Schrödinger’s self; the true self is both existent and non-existent, since it cannot ever be truly accessed. It never has real control the way other selves do - it merely trickles down, allows parts of itself to be osmosed into the other selves, such that it’s impossible to tell what came from where.
addendum: BRIDGES
Bridges are the means via which the selves intersperse with one another. For purposes of clarity, I’ve separated them into their own distinct categories here, but in reality, very rarely does one self show up completely unhindered by any other. In a job interview, my masked and angelic selves would hopefully take centre stage. Around my partner, more likely a combination of the known, internal and overflowing self. Maybe my parents would see something along the continuum between masked and known. This all fails to account for two things: one, the unconscious influence that my true self and my external self inherently have on everything without my knowledge; and two, the countless other selves that surely exist, but are not listed here due to my internal-self-imposed blinders, cutting out any aspect of myself I’m unable to perceive as an actual trait of mine.