I tend to get muddled up into the nuanced aspect of things, that grey area where everything can be both right and wrong at the same time, depending on how you choose to look at it.
And this is quite contrary to the clarity I seek on the workings of life and understanding. It's sort of a paradox on how we chase simplicity while being surrounded by complexity.
You could say seeking clarity in any field of life, first requires getting muddled up in the messy(nuanced) aspect of it before there's a breakthrough in understanding.
As in, having to wade through the fog before reaching the mountaintop where the view is crystal clear.
I think seeing a human being as a multiplicity of personalities brings some interesting realizations, apart from the conventional singular view of self.
For one, it challenges our basic assumption of having one fixed identity and opens up a more dynamic understanding of human nature.
Weather Forecast Blues
For example, I'm less bothered with mood changes on a day or weekly basis. Because it's merely just an effect of different aspects of my personality taking center stage at different times, rather than something being 'wrong' with me.
It's kind of similar to Plato's allegory of the cave, where you're seeing shadows dance on the wall but without understanding their true source or nature.
In this case, the shadows are like the different personalities that are dancing on your field of consciousness and creating the illusion of a fixed self, when in reality, we are more like a flowing river than a solid rock.
Secondly, viewing ourselves as a multiplicity of personalities brings profound implications for our decision-making process.
When faced with choices, what we experience as internal conflict may not necessarily be a flaw in our reasoning, but more so different aspects of ourselves advocating for their respective wisdom.
This is where it gets really interesting for me and a particular impasse that I find myself revisiting is when the career-focused self pushes for overtime but the relationship-oriented self yearns for more family time. Since both are valid and true to different dimensions of who I am, how do I integrated or navigate this complex interplay of different aspects of self?
Let Them Come And Go
I think a real breakthrough in emotional resilience comes when we stop trying to maintain a rigid, unchanging self.
Drop all rigidity and embrace this inner diversity. A bad day becomes less threatening when we understand it's just one aspect of our personality having its moment, similar to different weather patterns moving across the landscape of our consciousness.
Experientially, if we try to hold onto it, the moment stays much longer than if we just let it pass like the flowing time, with the same attitude that both can't be stopped.
This perspective naturally cultivates a more spacious relationship with our experiences. Giving us the ability to observe without getting entangled in each passing state.
Of course, on the other side of the spectrum, it doesn't mean all internal conflicts disappear. That can't really be solved through mere intellectual understanding or forced integration. These conflicts are inherent to our nature as complex beings.
I think what maintaining our center does is it makes us develop a more sophisticated way of working with them. Maybe developing the capacity to hold a space for our different aspects without being overwhelmed by their competing voices.
In a way, this also opens up new possibilities in our relationships too, which is becoming more accepting of others' multiplicities when we've made peace with our own.
After all, if we can hold space for our own complexity, we're better equipped to honor the complexity in others and also make interesting discoveries about them along the way.
Thanks for reading!! Share your thoughts below on the comments.