Q: What is every writer’s worst nightmare?
A: Being predictable, unoriginal, and cliché.
Caveat: It is possible that successful writers transcend this fear and can thus indulge in guilt-free predictability.
However, despite my horror of the cliché, I take up my pen to explore the topic of self-knowledge. It’s been treated before, extensively, but that hasn’t stopped millions of writers, and it doesn’t stop me. We are intrepid.
Self-knowledge. Here we go.
The fact that I seem to take on different characters and behaviors as I spend time with different people has bothered me a lot lately. What I want is to be genuine, not chameleon-like, after all. There are so many different Karens, and I’m far from being in control of them all. It makes me uneasy.
For example, there is Smooth Karen, who banters jauntily during a downtown lunch date with friends and acquaintances. In contrast, Awkward Karen can’t figure out what to say in the Sunday school class she’s visiting. This character takes comfort in the existence of Businesslike Karen, who makes herself useful by making professional phone calls and contributing to the wording of a document draft. On occasion, Fun Karen surfaces. This girl goes so far as to make shy steps in the direction of head-banging to Carbon Leaf. (Some friends are miracle workers.)
And, of course, the old faithful is what I like to call Karen in Repose. She is solitary, padding around the house in the clothes she (and no one else) likes. This Karen is a reader and tea drinker who listens to Enya and Rich Mullins and is unashamed by her wayward musical taste.
There are many others, including Tender Karen, Rebellious Karen, High IQ Karen, and Domestic Karen. I also know Fashionable Karen must exist, somewhere. Or, at least, I hope she does.
All this frustrates me, though. Why can’t I choose just one self to be? What’s with the variety? Can’t I find a version of myself that is pleasantly uniform?
Suddenly, Peanut Gallery Karen interjects, quoting storybook characters from bygone years: “That’s rather boring, wot?”
To which I respond: “Good point. Uniformity does have its monotonous aspects. But still – that just aggravates the problem. Now I have to choose between avoiding boredom and being sincere? I should hope not.”
At this point in my mental contortions, God takes pity on me, and, while I am attending an apologetics seminar, shows me a Scripture: 1 Corinthians 2:10-11.
“For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.”
In other words, people are too complex for any one circumstance to be able to fully expose their personalities. I don’t act the same in every single situation because no isolated situation can draw out the fullness of my personality. I find that exceedingly comforting. All of the different Karens can be genuine, even if they fail to achieve uniformity.
All of a sudden I started thinking about that movie, Multiplicity, where Michael Keaton clones himself….I think I’ll stop now.
6 comments:
Karen,
The myriad "outworkings" of God's image in us are astonishing, aren't they? I sympathize with your expression of uneasiness in not quite knowing what "self" will rise to the fore by our circumstances and comrades.
Two thoughts:
1. God is complex, and we are made in His image. We are to 'grow up in all ways into HIM', the Scriptures tell us - that means He is simultaneously developing HIS image and perfecting HIS identity in us (by His grace and our cooperation), over TIME.
2. You are young. I am a little older...but I remember feeling at 18 that I needed to address the nature of my 'person' in more decided ways than previously. (The intoxication of college independence had a LOT to do with that compulsion!)
Perhaps the best approach to self-knowledge is to live as Paul finally concluded, "For to me to live is Christ"...with THAT identity, we can be diverse, for HE is! Yet we should be consistently bent toward greater love for God and holiness toward others, for HIS glory.
Kathy B - New Albany
You forgot "Talkative Karen" and
Introverted Karen" .... I love you!
Great thoughts there Karen....I have recently come to a lot of the same conclusions... It is so freeing.
There in all those circumstances you, Karen are doing your best to make the most out of every opportunity. At times you probably wish a different aspect of who you are had come out to greet the situation and often the Lord will provide you with another opportunity to do things differently the next time a similar ocassion arises, because you were aware of how you handled it this time. Kind of exciting to think about, do you think so?
I too wear many faces - perhaps all of them are the "right" one.
I'm thinking of how the Son is different than the Father, yet they are both one, triune GOD.
I've struggled to come to terms with who the "one" me truly is, but I may indeed be struggling against the very nature of what it means to be human. So long as the "faces" don't contradict, could it be that they are all equally me?
~Grace
P.S. Katie said you just recently watched "Stranger than Fiction". Did you enjoy it?
We just watched it last night, and I ,just had to write about it on my blog....lol :-)
My first thought upon reading this post: "People are complex -- like the tax code."
My next thoughts were much more edifying. One was the sheer number of facets. I mean, we all represent different facets of something -- of God. And then, among all the billions of people/facets out there, there are thousands upon thousands of minute shards and shatterings of even more facets within each one person, taking the form of each of us "becoming different people." Amazing.
This post is splendid. I love what you came to....
(*ahem* I would read over that, but I don't feel like it....so forgive me if it makes little to no sense. :) )
~Hannah V.
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