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Theatrical Tuesday - The Persona

masks-833421_1280

Sorry, I'm late on this post because my neck was super sore yesterday and I mostly got movies watched because of it.

Anyway, Jung totally relates to theatre. Carl Jung came up with four archetypes. One of these is The Persona.

Basically, the persona is the masks we all wear around different people.

Now, some people act exactly the same around everyone they know, but most don't.

I know people that can't sneeze around people they don't know well. I know tons of women that have shy bladders in public restrooms. I know I used to pretend I didn't like horror as much as I do.

I totally act different with my five year old buddy than I do with someone on a date than I do around my martial arts pals than I do with my brothers, etc.

That's normal and mostly reasonable. This picture describes this a little better.

circle-of-friends

Actually, this one is even better.

circle

So we're all actors most of the days of our lives.

It's part of the reason coming home from work is such a relief. You can be unapologetically you.

Ideally, you want to get to that place with some of your social groups because they form your support network. I'm almost totally me around my dojo buds and the people that have known me since I was a child. For some, it's been awhile since they last saw me really inebriated because our parties changed when they had babies, but that's life. But I know if I really needed help, they'd be there.

Now, I don't think it's incredibly beneficial to hide large chunks of who you are from people you want to be closer to. If you have romantic feelings for someone and you spend a bunch of time pretending to be someone you aren't because you think they'd be more impressed rather than letting them get to know the real you, well, that's probably going to blow up eventually. More to the point, why would you want to? Why would you want them to think you are what you think is cooler than you are? I mean, they might actually think the real you is cooler than that person you want to pretend to be.

But sometimes we need to act, like when the boss expects the moon and you can only deliver a picture of the moon because you're not in possession of some moon capturing device and even if you were, that would probably destroy the Earth if you actually tried to give it to them. But you tell them, sure thing and deliver as close as possible. Actually, I usually tell them I can't destroy the world for you, but I'll get as close as possible.

Wait, that got weird. See why I don't usually let all of myself out to everyone? I can be quite ridiculous.

Anyway, there are some other Jungian archetypes and they're all quite fascinating. You can read more about them here. I've talked about a couple in this post.

R~
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