Discovering Your Other Self
You may find that you like it
If you’re like me, you often walk around feeling like there are “two of you” — dual selves fighting for dominance.
And you are right: There are, in a sense, two personas struggling within us all, like Jacob and Esau.
We experience this when we feel ourselves divided between ordinary life and peak possibility. People often harbor the feeling that they could become a writer, or could get straight As, or could excel at work, or could find a positive relationship…if only they were able to freely throw themselves upon the energies of their higher, better, more formidable doppelgänger, waiting to be released. This possibility is real, but it is rarely, or only fleetingly, exercised.
Many modern fiction writers and psychologists, not to mention their ancient and folkloric forebears, have posited the existence this “other self.” Psychologist Carl Jung famously called it the shadow, which he identified as a fount of unacknowledged desires and proclivities; if acknowledged and integrated into your day-to-day consciousness, these shadow traits could lead to the growth of untapped powers, confidence, and abilities. For fantasy writer Robert Louis Stevenson, the other self was the malevolent “Mr. Hyde,” a feral counterpart to the refined and likable persona of Dr. Jekyll. For Edgar…
