Who we are

I discovered something very interesting about my personality this morning. Maybe discovered isn’t the right word. I’ve known about it for as long as I remember but it had never dawned on me how odd it might be or what it might possibly mean. I’ll try to explain.

I was up at 6:30 this morning due to a phone interview I had scheduled at seven in the morning. Now obviously I wasn’t the one who scheduled this call. Even when I was working I couldn’t bring myself to be awake by seven and doing so while unemployed seems a cruel and unusual punishment. But, that was what was set up and I can’t really go “I’m kind of planning on getting wasted on Wednesday night. Could we reschedule for a time when I’m slightly more sober.” Anyway, while lying in bed I had to motivate myself to get up and told myself, “Look, we really need to get going.”

Stare at that statement for a little while. I refer to myself in the plural. It really hit me that when I talk to myself I always refer to myself in the plural. “We need to get our shit together”, “We need to think up a gameplan”, “It’s time for us to get some sleep”. That is how my internal monologue works. The voice in my head is referring to itself and some other component that needs to work in harmony.

I’ve spent much of the day trying to figure out precisely what that means. The best I can think of is that I truly feel as though my physical self and my mental/spiritual self are two completely separate systems. There is the part of me that controls my thinking and feeling and could be considered my soul and then there is my body, which is where my soul just happens to find itself at the moment. Now that isn’t too unique of a thought but it is the fact that I consider them to be so separate. Much of the time I don’t think of myself as a me, more of an us.

(Note: This doesn’t mean I have multiple personalities or anything. True, there are EC, Chris and Christopher but those are basically variations on who I am. All that differs are which parts of my personality have the volume turned up at any point in time. EC is the funny, cynical one, Christopher is my serious, goal focused work persona and Chris is the default me, a smart, caring guy who never quite seems to understand what is going on around him. But those are all me.)

I’m not sure if this is unusual or not. I’ve never found out how other people talk to themselves. It doesn’t bother me, really. In a way it helps me not feel so alone in the world. Like there are always various parts of me working together. It just might explain why I sometime get lost in my own thoughts and seem to be out of it. That side of me just takes over and I can’t seem to connect with myself for a little while. That isn’t a good thing, it’s what I am typically referring to when I discuss spending time in the dark corners of my soul, but I at least understand what is going on.

Any thoughts out there in cyberspace? How do you talk to yourself? Is this more universal than I think or should I look at upping my medication? I’d be really interested to hear some thoughts.

Have a fun holiday everyone. Please stay healthy out there. (I also realized that in my entire life I have never lit a firecracker. I think I might have held a sparkler once. I never quite understood the point. You light something and it goes boom. Ok, so what?)