Inner Dialogue

Dear Future Historian,

Today I was informed indirectly, by her psychologist, that I don't exist cause she's not crazy enough! I believe the way it was phrased was: It’s time you admit the fact that even you know that she does not exist… because you aren’t schizophrenic; you're just autistic with big imagination. 

Well, that wasn't new information anyway. I never mind that. I've been told all our life that I don't exist. I remember going to school and laughing at the thought that no one even knows I exist. People are looking straight in our eyes without having the slightest idea that two are looking back at them, not one. What a more incognito place to be born than in someone else's head! The only way to avoid paperwork these days I suppose. The very few people that we ever trusted to speak about me had exactly the same reaction with the psychologist.

Why did I even choose that subject today? How realy honest can I be about my motives and intentions? My other-half-me wanted to talk about motives with her psychologist after the dismiss of my existence! She said that she can spot a shellfish motive even in her most noble acts. She said she wants to know herself better and stuff. How hypocritical! One minute to deny half of yourself and the next minute to state that you want to know yourself. 

I was OK with all these for 40 years now, settled in my corner of the brain.

- 39.

Will you stop it now? Let me finish this. Didn’t you ask me to write this?

- What are you talking about? You’re the one who wanted us to go back to uni. You always did the writings anyway.

For someone that doesn’t exist I seem to have a big influence in our... in your life!

- I won’t interrupt again, sorry.

Sorry? What’s the real motive of your sorries? You’re right to investigate about motives. That’s all I have to say.

- You kind of have to say a lot more. It’s still only 350 words. You need 1500 you said. 

You said you won’t interrupt again.

- ...

Where was I? Oh, yes. So, I was settled in my corner of the brain. Letting her... OK if you’re going to interrupt maybe I should stop addressing this to the dear readers and speak to you directly. Because I was happy to share life with you and let you take the main decisions. I always agreed that rights go with responsibilities, and I admit that I always let all the boring things to you to handle. 

I didn’t mind, I really didn’t, that you didn’t speak about me, or that no one believed I exist, and you were OK with that. But today something very different occurred. You know that we can’t hide from each other. You know I sensed your doubts.

Do you know that I could equally question your existence as well? Do you pay any attention when I’m reading my books? What would Jung say about us? What if you are just the Persona... just another fictional character... pretending to exist, because I (the one that really actually exists) am too terrified to interact with anyone, so I send my fictional representative to deal with the world.

So, I can stay in my side of our brain... well... in that scenario maybe the whole brain is mine. Imagine how different of a life that would be to the one we had for 40... 39 years now. Having a whole brain and a whole body for myself. Plus stay safe in there and send someone else to curry the daily Sisyphusian rock.

You are not speaking now, are you? What to say, I guess. Let me keep writing then. Let me inform our readers some more about our co-existence. 

Left side and right side. Lesbian and straight. Favourite colour purple and favourite colour aqua blue. Gothic and hippy. Introvert and extrovert. You get the picture. Yet most of our life it was her dreams that we followed. It is men that we have relationships with. Check your motives... Yeah you most definitely should! (See what you made me do now? I changed inside one paragraph from the reader to you again.)

We always, so far, have lived together in peace. We knew that the minute we’ll turn against each other, that minute we’re done. So, I decorated my half... and stayed there. The entrance has a huge wooden Hollywood-Fantasy Gate, that opens and closes according to its own mood. Of course, that’s just what an observer that has-eyes-but-does-not-see would think. Because the Gate knows exactly what it’s doing and why. 

So, you enter through the Character-Judgement Gate and you are inside private property now. The garden inside has Japanese-Manga trees, that smell like ice-cream, and ethnic colourful hammocks. There is a path that leads to the main door of the house. Everything has a Theme-Park aesthetic. And somewhere at the back there is a carousel and a whale... I guess I haven’t updated my sanctuary much since I was a child. Anyway. Maybe that’s not much of a public interest I suppose. I suppose this, as me, probably doesn’t even exist anyway.

I could set up convenient definitions of existence that would undoubtedly include me. I’m sure about that. But that’s not the point really. Is it?

- Are you asking me?

Will you stop? I’m trying to self-actualize here. 

- ...

Archetypes exist in a sense. Stories I’m sure they exist, in the Word of Forms or something. Why can’t I be certain of my own existence?

Is that what happened to God? Did we dismiss him so much that he started to doubt his own self?

- We need a ‘She’ God.

Are you hitting on me now? Really? You’re truly unbelievable.

- What does it matter anyway if you exist, or me, or anything for that matter? We still keep each other company. We still move about. You’re still writing your things. I’m still raising our kids.

How can that suffice?

- How can it not? Just think about it. You (and I for that matter) might either do really exist, or we don’t. So, either we do exist, and you worry for nothing; or we (you, or me, or both,) don’t exist. Right? In that case, let me use your own words. For someone that doesn’t exist you surely do have a big influence in my life. And you’ve already self-published two books last summer. What more self-actualization do you need? That’s more than some people that ‘do exist’ will ever accomplish. As for me? It would be totally awesome in a way if I’m just a persona, but I have more friends than you and I am the adult in the house! In other words, honestly... I don’t really understand. Why are you freaking out again? Aren’t you the one obsessed with immortality? Well, let me tell you one thing. I don’t think you can die if you do not exist. What do you think?

I think that the pandemic, and life in general, has made me doubt my immortality thoughts. That’s what I think. 

- Don’t give up on me now girl. Come on. Your faith was never real then. Maybe you were never real either... Is that what you want to hear? Didn’t you say once... well, I don’t remember exactly how you phrased it. You are the writer, as we said. But you said something like ‘Even if we don’t exist, we will create ourselves.’ And much more you’ve said and written about Death and Life and all these things. You always seem to know what you’re talking about. I don’t know...

I never know what I’m talking about. Don’t you know yet that no one does? And since you’re into motives lately... what would be the point of all that anyway? I’m not sure I understand anymore to be honest. What would really be the secret motive, the underlying intention, of existence? What is it that makes Life buzz? And why are we missing it so much? Is it just me?

- What did Jung say? I am paying attention when you’re listening to your books if you want to know. Remember what he said? What you’re describing the lack of, as if you made a great discovery, today you heard Jung’s voice echoing beyond time, as I was washing the dishes, through the medium of the narrator of the audiobook... you heard him describing exactly that. And he also predicted that things would get worse for the coming generations. But what was already known since ‘time immemorial,’ or something like that, needs to be re-discovered. Because we killed our God.

You’re crazy!

- Hahaha. Thank you. And you are the biggest proof of that! Hahaha.

For a Persona you’re not that bad yourself. 

- Thank you. ... internal-self-hug?

Yes please. A squeezy one.