Well hot damn, in the course of just one week I managed to tear down a few of my precious ideals. Guess that happens when your postmortem soul begins waltzing around, bringing out old and dusty skeletons of oft-ignored personality traits out of the closet of the subconscious. High fidelity my ass. Worse things happen, and I'm counting 1, 2, 3... OK, gotta focus a little bit.
What's happening? This happening: as y'all are sure not to know, but as far as astrology goes, I am one hell of a happy dead camper, finger on the trigger in the Demolish-Me game fire button arsenal. I am a rare bird, in which I am an aquarius with a taurus ascendant. Go on, kids, go to any good astrology site (my suggestion would be www.cainer.com, the guy has an uncannily nasty tendency to hit the proverbial nail on its proverbial head), and check under "love or personality matches according to astrological sign", and try to match up an aquarius and a taurus. Then sit back, relax, mix up a big fat serving of tequila sunrise, and enjoy the unfolding nuclear meltdown. Yip. There are signs that are just purely unmatchable. Totally different worlds. I mean totally. Not an inch of swerving room. Nope. Nada. And here I am, Mr. Happy Dead Camper Valhalla Guy, having both sets of personality in me.
Oh, wait, don't call 911 just yet. I don't need no wacko suit.
See, as far as sanity is concerned, I'm usually regarded to be as sane as a brick (and may I add, I have yet to see a loony brick). Steadfast. Headstrong. Still cradling at least 3 basic personalities in my head. How's that possible? Easy. Try to answer something... what is a personality? A voice? Might go mute, but still the writing carries the personality on. A face? Might get mutilated, disfigured, still, we recognize the people speaking (or writing). Things that he/she owns? Oh please. No, a personality is a very simple thing: it's an action/reaction matrix. Depending on the personality, this matrix has few or more, or even not a single one random variant functions, and stuff like that. Also, a personality is made up mostly of memories. We are not who we are. We are who we remember being. Actually, these two things are interconnected: memories build up the action/reaction matrix, and this matrix defines what kind of decisions are made and thus what kinds of memories are going to be produced on the way. Beautiful, ain't it?
Also, there is a third element to all this, but mainly it's a mixture of memories and matrices: reference points. Homo sapiens, be whatever substrain of it, is a relative creature, that is: cannot think in terms of absolute things. Ideas, measurements, standpoints, morals are all relative. Related to whom or what, you may ask: well, homo sapiens is also a social creature, therefore the source of "inspiration" to build these matrices, memories and referential points come headfirst from family, then communities, then cultures. Our parents teach us that it's not nice to shit the carpet, or burp up carrot mash right onto daddy's new Lacoste shoes, and through pavlovian measures, we adopt (or we don't, we little devils, but that's also a standing point, even if different). So we start collecting points of reference. Later on, in Sunday school, we are being taught the nature of sin and suffering and redemption and all that shit, so we begin formulating opinions about good and evil. (Mind you, this is also up the twisted little crazy thought processes, AFAIK Hitler also went to Sunday school, even though he wasn't even Hitler at that time... and look what happened.) And this process goes on for the entirety of our lives (or deaths, as some would undubitely call our attention to), always getting new points of reference, or having previous points moved around, sometimes even completely rewriting entire blocks of referential points.
Well, try imagining all these points of reference, emotional memories and a lot of a/r matrices being swept clean because of a nervous breakdown. Ain't no sunshine, baby. And I'm one of the lucky chaps being able to say "been there, done that." Well, anyways, that's not the point, might come back to it one day... but not today.
Oh, got a bit detracted there... So, a personality is mainly: sum of memories, sum of a/r matrices, and a set of referential points. Let's go on. Suppose, that a person has a lot of experience and a very strong inclination towards private-level diplomacy, therefore builds up a set of adaptive matrices and referential points -- adaptive in the sense that the a/r matrices work depending on the situation, surroundings, climate, colour of the sky, whatever -- call these external variants -- and mood, playfulness, provocation, whatever -- call these then internal variants --, so a person develops an adaptive personality. Some people tend to call this ability -- I'd go as far as to call it a gift -- roleplaying, and they usually mean it in no nice context. Well, of course, such roleplaying can turn to the sour really much, if the adaptation works only for the good of the "variant" person. If such ability is used to sort of "lighten the mood", or create an impression of brotherhood or sisterhood or any other bigbum like that, I'd like to call that smart.
You see, it's not hard to develop multiple personalities, going even as far as one personality having a favourite colour of blue, then the other one of red. And that's only the small stuff. The possibilities, combinations, and thus, the outcomes are endless. Nice stuff, ain't it? And just think of the really great actors who wear their roles as a second skin -- you can hardly call them split personalities. And just think of the spies, phone sex service personnel, all those people who was "multiple personalities" written in their job description.
The problem arises when these sub-personalities, whether artificially-induced or not, lose contact with each other, and start fighting for domination. That is a major fuckup, accompanied by general confusion and private despair (geez, these military jokes are getting thin).
So where was I... yes. So I have an aquarius personality and a taurus personality living in the same body, arguing and fighting, or sometimes working in harmony (actually, truth to be told, harmony is much more the pleasant present state than disarray, but both have seasons). Check back: totally different referential points, behaviours, thinking processes, everything. Actually, if one spends a year in limbo trying to figure out who the hell he is supposed to be, after all, learns to have a pretty good understanding of self, and ends up with very few choices as to what should happen personality-wise...
For issues of stability and growth, in the past few years I let my taurus take the reins, and aquarius sat back to enjoy the ride (baaaawwwring, he said more than often), and to blurp up random acts of wisdom or total goofballness (er, is there such a word, actually?). And by now, step by step, Mr. Aquarian is demanding the controls back.
If you know any aquariuses, you already know by now that the safest point to observe such a changeover, prolonged as it may be, is from a few cities away, clad in a radiation suit, sitting in a lead-walled fallout shelter. Being a few kilometres underground doesn't hurt, either.
We-ell, ladies and gentlemen, the change has started.
I am actually quite curious where all this will lead me. Make no mistake: I am embarking on yet another strange journey. In a way, I am leaving Valhalla, and come back as a mad prophet or a bum or a gentleman of class slurping whisky every evening. Dunno. The possibilities are -- need I remind you at all? -- endless.
And as this new turning personality, I already made a few huge mistakes. I am actively breaking down the walls of my so well established morals, I am engaging in adventures I once did -- which led me straight to my nervous breakdown -- and I can only hope that this time out it's gonna be a power trip, not a long walk down the slopes of Hell... again...
God, whatever you are, have mery on my soul.
And most of all, have mercy on the poor souls who are going to be crushed in my wake.
