My View On the Human Mind...

I find my insanity levels dipping, so my post will likely have less prfanity and completely wierd shit in them, I will try to keep up on the randomness factor though.

Recently I've been thinking about the human mind. I play a lot of video games and recently got my hands of Persona 4. For those of you who don't know what that is, It's a Japanise-style RPG from the Shin Megami Tensei franchise, the newest of the Persona series. Basically, the Persona series is teenage students fighting monsters in their spare time. There's more to it than that, but I don't have time to go into it here. It got me thinking about Freud and his Super-ego/Ego/Id theory. In short the Super-ego is the rules that we internalize, i.e. it's wrong to kill, etc. The Id is our basic instincts, kept in check and keeping in check the Super-ego. The Ego is the concious mind, is deals with the input from the envrionment and the output of the Super-ego and Id. I believe that the Ego has a sub-component, the Persona(hence my rablings about Persona 4). The Persona is the 'face' we show others, i.e. tough-guy, confident, self-secure, etc. We use a Persona as a kind of filter, to keep some things in and let other things out. Ultimately this leads to what I'm calling a Shadow(another term from the games). This Shadow is the stuff about ourselves that we filter out with our Persona. Think of it this way, our Personas are the masks we wear to hide our true faces, our Shadows. I think that everyone everywhere has not only a Persona, but a Shadow to match it. I figure these masks form as we develop, and so, in turn, do our Shadows. This explains why young children don't often filter what they say, they just say it. Their Personas have yet to form. This got me thinking as to why a Persona forms. It should be pretty obvious, but I think a Persona forms as a kind of shield initially. At first we use Personas to protect ourselves from being hurt emotionally. The Shadow forms as a kind of counterbalance, the other side of the scales. For some people, there is little to hide and there for their Personas, and there for their Shadows, are relatively simple. For others, people who have much to hide, many things they wish to keep secret, heir Personas become much larger and more complex, and so do theri Shadows. I feel that this may actually be a problem. How can we 'be ourselves' if we are forever wearing masks? This I see paralelled in how people use the internet. We make false selves through which to interact with one another, to compensate for the fact that our masks do not tranlate digitally. I don't think people do this conciously, but as an act of comfort, a way to feel safe. I'm not condemning them for doing, I myself do it as well, infact I think I'm someone with a fairly complex Persona, because of my own self-doubt. I feel that as long as each of us finds a place, or person, or what ever where we are not alone and can take off these masks, these Persona, and, basically give our Shadows a chance to breathe, it would do us good. I guess what I'm saying is be true to yourself, but be true to all of yourself, not just the parts you like. Even flaws need a little love.

Feel free to add your own twists to this. Everyone's view is different.