The Committee In My Head

I recently read this fabulous little book by Robert Fulghum called Maybe (Maybe Not): Second Thoughts From A Secret Life, and while it didn’t exactly live up to what I expected, it did help explain a lot of things that I've wondered about.

Well... ‘Explain’ may be overstating it a bit, ‘relating’ may be more appropriate.

Mostly what he does is tell stories about his life (btw, this is the guy that did All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten,) and they are some wonderful stories. -I could only hope to be such a great storyteller!- But what really caught my attention was in the first few pages of the book:

"Suppose that everything going on in your head in twenty-four hours could be accurately recorded on videotape. Your night dreams and daytime fantasies, conversations with yourself and appeals to the gods, the music and memories that float about, and all the loony trivia that ricochets around in your mind.

Suppose all this material could be played in a theater -with multiple screens and a multitrack sound system. A pretty sensational show, I'd guess. MTV, X-rated video, Science Fiction Theater, Harlequin Romances, CD-ROM, and the National Enquirer combined couldn't compete with what goes on behind the closed door of the secret side of our minds.

The operative word here is "secret."

Public lives are lived out on the job and in the marketplace, where certain rules, conventions, laws, and social customs keep most of us in line.

Private lives are lived out in the presence of family, friends, and neighbors who must be considered and respected, even though the rules and proscriptions are looser than what's allowed in public.

But in our secret lives, inside our own heads, almost anything goes.

We alone are answerable for what we think and do when nobody else is around or involved. Categories of "fact" and "fiction" are irrelevant in here. Are dreams true? Is what you imagine accurate?

Inside these tight boundaries of flesh and bone is a borderless jungle in which clearings exist. In these open spaces, there may be an amusement park, a zoo, a circus, a library, a museum, a theater, or a landscape stranger than Mars.

We refer to ourselves in first person singular -"I"- but inside, it's more like first person plural. Most of the time, my inner life seems like a ventriloquist act. A ceaseless dialogue between Me and my dummy. Oddly enough, the dummy is smarter than I am.

It seems as if my dummy and I have lots of company. There's quite a crowd in here with us. A child and its parents. A wise old person. A mechanic, demons, a fool, a scientist, comedian, musician, dancer, athlete, magician, professor; a Romeo, censor, police officer, fire fighter, and multitudes more. The population of a small town inhabits the landscape of these disunited states of myself. And the town meeting is always in session.

I can fully relate to the occasional stories in the tabloids about multiple personalities. This is not news to me. In the best sense of the word, I run an asylum-a safe refuge-in my mind. And it's not a problem. As long as I keep the shades drawn and the doors closed, and don't let anybody loose, all is well. As long as I'm firmly in charge of my secret life, the world sees me as sane and functional. Am I? Sometimes it's hard to tell.

Those who have closely considered the secret life -people like Freud and Jung- use metaphors to speak about the way we keep the secret life from causing chaos in personal and public life. They speak of "the gatekeeper," "superego," "monitor," and "inner parent".

My own metaphor is the Committee."

I couldn’t have said it better if I tried! And just to give you an example, half the committee in my head says not to do this post because people will think I’m a dork. The other half says that the people who read my blog already know that I’m a dork, so what the heck? :o)