Who are you in light of who you think is looking—when no one is looking? Jeremy McKeen asks the ultimate identity-revealing questions.
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Our brains are self-serving, deceptive, and wonderful things. They reflect and produce, create and interpret, and analyze each concrete and abstract point and symbol from life so as to comfort itself, prolong life, and survive. We think we’re good–we really do–even when we’re not objectively good, and we rewrite history as much as we can, often employing others to echo our version of events, whether it’s a bowling score, some “glory days” narrative, or a nation’s treatment of its disenfranchised people. We’re just like that, us humans.
And who we are–whoever that is–is who we are when we are alone and don’t think we’re being watched, when our thoughts echo and secret plans are made for the day, or month, or lifetime.
Observing the Observer
My children’s brains–much like yours and mine–already run on intermittent loops of how to act and think in light of dad (and mom), figuring in what I did wrong (and the times I forgot about it). Somehow their little brains’ dendrites locked onto a million small moments I wasn’t aware of or didn’t think of; they’ll remember what dad was doing when they were busy playing and I thought they weren’t listening, or what it was like to ask me questions, hold my hand. They’ve been cataloging my brand of discipline and attitude and cross-referencing it with every other parent, adult, teacher, and child, since ever. Almost all of this can be said for my decade-plus years of students and athletes, who were always observing the observer.
The question here is: Who are you when no one else is looking? Aside from asking my parents, wife, students, former roommates, and people in close proximity who I didn’t know were looking, I’m all alone in answering this, fittingly. And so are you.
Only Children are Strange Creatures
As an only child, I had years of practice being myself when no one was looking, and, thanks to great musical and theatre training, plenty of years of also performing on stage and in the classroom, when others were looking. Thankfully I didn’t develop the unique narcissism that plagues many only children, but I did develop a sense that I’m supposed to be great, for some reason, and that odd guilt in part drives me, along with a propensity to perform. That might be a generational, however, but it’s a stuck-part of who I am, although I fight hard against such unnatural pressures.
“There is nothing you must be, and there is nothing you must do,” goes my favorite Zen saying, which is one of the hardest ideas to grasp and internalize in a world of heavy must-dos and who-be’s. Everyone is someone, right? But everyone can’t be greater than everyone else. So you must be great at being you. Or something like that.
The hardest part of acting on stage is when you’re not delivering lines. You’re just there, in character, acting like a character, standing like a character, breathing like a character, waiting for lines. The You that is really You is the You who is inside your actions; you are also the sum of your reactions; you are as complex and simple as the next observer and the thoughts you think when you’re reflecting on your performance, either as a character or as your character, whoever that is.
You are complex, and multitudinous, and yet you and I are only a little loose dirt.
When no one is looking I’m often practicing for when they are, but also trying to enjoy being alone, which I do enjoy. As a writer I’m hoping for an audience who wants to read what I’m thinking about when no one else is looking; as a teacher and coach I want to be observed when no other teacher or administrative person is observing, because that’s when I’m most natural and hopefully most effective and true; as a parent I want to be present at all times, and kind and smart with my kids, even if they aren’t paying any attention (sometimes I can actually leave the room and they don’t notice!); and as a husband I want to be the same loving friend at all times, whether we’re catching a quick conversation while the kids are distracted, or whether we’re hiding from the kids to be alone together, or, on that rare occasion when we get to go out, I want to be the ideal and imperfect person my wife wanted to – and did – marry.
But when no one is actually looking, I don’t want to just be preparing to not be alone. I want to be, and I am, hooked into the same channels I’ve been locked into since my memory-making machine first kicked in years ago. “I’m the same as I when I was six years old,” goes the lyric from Modest Mouse, and I agree. I feel the same “me” as I remember feeling at age three and thirteen and thirty-three. There is something, some layered creature that I feel that is decidedly me, all the time, anywhere, with or without another. My wit + intelligence + memories + proclivities + kindness + anger + curiosity + earnestness + ability to function in a group + a bunch of x, y, and z factors = a good base for who I am, and then how I react when no one is looking gives me insight into what I truly am, beyond just being a good and kind person. I actually aim to be the same whether someone is looking or not, and I’m well aware of who might be looking.
But who you are transcends easy Venn diagrams and a whole existence based on one choice.
Life is full of nobody looking at you
This is true most of the time, most places, even on Google Earth. Everyone needs to be alone as much as possible in order to recharge and center. Sometimes that centering comes when there’s a crowd, and sometimes it happens in the quieter moments of meditation while watching reruns or doing nothing (there’s much to be said for doing nothing, as it were). A third of your life is sleeping and dreaming, when only your own subconscious and unconscious abilities are watching what your other subconscious and unconscious talents are doing or undoing. The other two-thirds of your life are spent with minimal watching, because most people are observing themselves, or the 2D characters on tv or in books.
Maybe no one is watching you because there are just too many people to watch. That might be a good thing.
Who you are, in public and private, is a grandiose thing, whatever it is.
And sometimes it happens–a perfect development of who you actually are–only when the children are watching or listening, making those films in their perfect little brains.
So who are you when no one else is looking?
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Photo: Nick Page/Flickr
This essay first appeared as “The I, the Am, and the Sound of the Universe” here on Nerdy Dad Shirt.
Read more from Jeremy McKeen on his Bergamot Ink column (posted every week on The Good Men Project):
147 Of The Answers For You, For Now (Oh Dear Graduates)
Cheap Cars, Fast Burgers: How Madness Takes Root
13 Ways You Can Achieve Total Perspective
To My Brother, Who is My Cousin: A Plea for Family
Avengers, Deconstruct! 15 Ways to Tell if You’re Living a Superhero’s Origin Story
Sex, Gender, and Manhood: Lessons From Bruce Jenner’s Coming Out
One Last Hurrah Before We All Go Green
When To Love Your Neighbor In America
Why I’m Letting My Girl Be A Girl
16 Ways You May Already Be An Old Man
The 17 Secrets Dads and Moms Need To Know About LEGOs To Survive
A Dad’s Postcard to the World on Behalf of His Un-Born Child
A Dad’s Wish: Child, May You Never Be Sad
And read more from Jeremy here on Nerdy Dad Shirt or Sammiches and Psych Meds.
Hi Jeremy! The spirit is that part of us that we share with our creator and everyone else. We are all part of the same spirit. The spirit is that little voice that tells us what to do. When listening to the spirit, you are not trying to figure things out. you just feel what is the right thing to do. The mind is analytical by nature and is always trying to solve problems and make decisions quickly. When we are anxious or nervous, we are probably trying to make a decision with not enough information. If we listen to… Read more »
Thanks Mark! Now how do you discern gut, mind, and spirit?
Hi Jeremy. Great article. Many men find it difficult to be themselves. Society imposes standards that go against long term happiness. I agree wholeheartedly that we should be ourselves. The key is to be guided by our spirit and not our mind. When we use our mind and not our spirit, we think and analyze to much. Our mind puts us in the past or in the future and very rarely allows us to reside in the present. When we listen to “our gut”, we are being authentic and not worrying about outcomes or others perceptions. I enjoy articles like… Read more »