It’s become increasingly apparent to me lately that an excessive amount of my cerebral energy is being spent considering how my actions are perceived by others, or, even, as I anticipate actions I might be inclined to engage in, how those future doings will, hypothetically, effect how others valuate my person. I suppose it’s natural to have a concern for one’s public image up to a point; after all, no one wants to be a social misfit, ostracized for thought, word or deed. And, I guess the ego for most of us can be a fairly delicate thing. But at what point does concern for image get in the way of acting with strength and conviction and without second thought?
Anyway, what has me thinking about these things is my engagement in a most interesting tome called The Book of Disquiet. The writer, Fernando Pessoa (not surprisingly, an early 20th century European immersed in his own particular existential dilemma) invented personas so elaborately constructed the identity of Pessoa himself disappeared. Claiming we are all many in one, a profusion of selves, Pessoa wrote through his heteronyms, text without singular aim, a compilation of disparate aphorisms never intended as a cohesive work.
It’s a lonely idea, I guess, but there is beauty and truth in by-passing the inevitable struggle with ego and identity many artists have to deal with.
