Within You, Without You

This post may make more sense to you if you watch this video first (or during). However, it's doubtful. After listening to that song, very little in this world makes sense. Very little at all.

Anyway, a few days ago I'm burning daylight at a Borders, and I pick up Chuck Klosterman's Eating the Dinosaur because, well, because I'm a mindless sheep and Borders had it prominently displayed. They hoped that this would tempt me to buy it, but I showed them. Indeed, I merely read it while I was there - and will likely do so again in the future. On point, Dinosaur is a collection of Klosterman's essays from life as a journalist, music critic, and nerd icon. The first essay is meta (though I do hate that term) - an essay in which he interviews people upon the subject of being interviewed - namely those he deems to be experts: "This American Lifes'" Ira Glass and noted documentary filmmaker Errol Morris.

Now, I must admit that very little of the other specifics stuck with me, my brain instead reeling off - as it is wont to do - into its own little happy garden.* The subject of my digression was one I've ruminated upon before, it's very possible we all have. It's a variation of Rachel Dawes' one notable line in Batman Begins: "It's not who you are, but what you do, that defines you." Now, while that film is most certifiably TEH AWESOME (as the kids say), that line is both prosaic and uttered by Katie Holmes. Let's just say, torturedly, that Katie Holmes could be held at gunpoint with the recently slain corpse of the very last silver-backed gorilla in one arm, and a child with malaria in the other, and I still wouldn't take her seriously. Holmes-aside, what I'm getting at is the fascinating dichotomy between our inner thoughts, our "inner selves" if you, and our outward behaviors/words/actions. We shall refer to them as inner dog, and outer dog.

Here in my head, Maddog Command Center Alpha 1 I call it most times (not true), I have a conception of myself. Inner Dog is contemplative, measured, polite, sensitive, articulate, intelligent, good with people, you know, perfect in every way. But not exactly. Inner maddog is conscious of some (but probably not all) of his faults. He's insecure, maddeningly irrational at times, quick to anger - especially over trivial matters like driving, waiting in line etc. - and hopelessly neurotic. He does many things he shouldn't, even though he knows better.

Outer dog, on the other hand, is a tricky subject, and one where your opinion is just as valid as mine. Obviously, I can only witness outer dog through the lens of Maddog Command Center Alpha 1 - codename: Inner dog. Too bad for you: I can also only experience your outer dog through my inner dog. My conception of my outward behavior my differ entirely from yours, and vice versa. What I can say is that, in my mind, the image projected by my outward behavior is rarely congruent with what "inner dog" would like to think I am. Now, at times, it's possible that any of the 'inner' characteristics apply. However, actual behavior adds brash, rude, indiscreet, arrogant, chatty, or even oblivious to the mix. Attention seeking and a know it all perhaps.

It's not my intention to psychoanalyze myself, and I'm not claiming anything novel or groundbreaking here. We likely all have facades, masks, projections - and they aren't monolithic. I'm likely a different person amongst different groups and I think we all are to some extent. I know for a fact that in the days when I was both a college student and a construction worker (in the summers), I had very different manners of speech, vocabularies, and standards of accepted behavior depending on where I was.

Nor am I looking to discover which one of these is "really" me. I see little point to the question. In so far as it matters, the real me is likely the combination of my thoughts and behaviors, and in many cases the twain meet. You are polite = you hold the door for someone, or let them go first in line. You are contemplative and intelligent, thus you don't rush to judgment, you consider all sides. You are neurotic - thus you act neurotically. Better yet, the "real you" is also the product of every single little bit of your life environment, as well as the grand coincidence of thousands (maybe millions, maybe more) of different "successful co-minglings of genetic material" throughout the course of human history - and yes, I just used Lilith Sternin-Crane quote. You may be 99.7% genetically identical to a chimpanzee, but to be exactly like you are at your exact point in life took a great, great many things coming together in a fortuitous way.

No, what interests me is the mingling, the interaction, the negotiation (using this word, a word academia so loves, pains me just a bit here) between Inner Dog and Outer Dog. All other people will see is outer, however you decide to project it. But what you project will also be deeply influenced by the emotions/thoughts that you'll never talk about. In some people there may be little, possibly no, difference between the two. As I've said, I definitely believe there is in my case. Does this make it impossible for someone on the outside to truly "know" us? Does it make it impossible for we on the inside to truly "know" us? What the hell does it mean to "know" us? Does it matter?

I really have no idea how to wrap this up - I haven't written a long mind-numbing post in a while, and I was never very good at them to begin with. So I think I might just let it hurtle off of a cliff here, to the tune of a sitar.