Light On Dark Water

But Who Are You, Really?

I have a silly tendency to expect that actors and actresses who play characters I like will be people I would like as well. I know it makes no sense, but it happens all the time–all right, I admit it's worse when the person is a beautiful woman–and it was the case with Reese Witherspoon and her performance as June Carter Cash in Walk the Line. 

More than once I've had this illusion dispelled by a news story. I was a bit disappointed to read earlier today that Reese Witherspoon had behaved most obnoxiously to a policeman who stopped her husband on suspicion of drunk driving, a suspicion which proved to be perfectly well-founded, not only the driver–her husband–but the passenger–herself–being pretty well plastered. You can read an account here, but the basic story is that she pulled the Do You Know Who I Am!?! gambit that is probably about the most irritating thing a well-known person, politician or entertainer or athlete, can do. 

 She apologized decently, with seeming sincerity, and no complaining. So she has that to her credit in my opinion, which would no doubt be a comfort to her.

But here is what I wanted to talk about: in the apology she said "This is not who I am." One hears that frequently from people who are embarrassed or ashamed. And I always want to say, "Are you sure?"

 In vino veritas may not be a law of nature, but it's a real phenomenon. That spoiled celebrity may not be who Reese Witherspoon wants to be, but she's in there somewhere, and last Thursday night she had a chance to step out and say a few words.

Perhaps I'm just out of touch, but I don't hear as much as I used to of the idea that each of us is fundamentally a wonderful person whose occasionally unpleasant thoughts and behavior are simply the effects of society or circumstances having warped our essential nature. But This is not who I am may be a sort of residue of it, and of the idea that there is a single "true self" buried somewhere within us. Better to accept that we all have a spoiled celebrity, or someone equally obnoxious, if not downright evil, inside us, and keep him under very close supervision, since we cannot by our own power get rid of him. As Baudelaire said of the devil, his most effective tactic is to make us think he doesn't exist.

Maclin Horton
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38 responses to “But Who Are You, Really?”

  1. Robert Gotcher

    I once did a blog post about this when Mel Gibson had his drunken antisemitic tirade.
    asked whether “words that one speaks when severely inebriated reflect more or less one’s true ideas, positions, etc. I for one have all kinds of thoughts, ideas and especially feelings floating around in my head and body that I have absorbed after 47 years of living. I’m sure that if the conscious portions of my mind were suppressed (which represent what I have chosen to believe and accept, even if I haven’t fully integrated them into the less conscious, affective part of my being), I would say scandalous things which I do not believe. I certainly would use language I never use ordinarily, because the urge to do so (and the urge to hate certain people, etc) exists in me. I’ve just made a choice not to let that energy be the energy that directs my life. I, of course, am sometimes unsuccessful at redirecting the energy of my passions towards more lofty expressions, even when I’m sober. Ask my wife and kids.”

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  2. Mac

    Yes, I think the idea that what might come out under the influence of alcohol, or whatever loosening circumstance, is THE real self is equally erroneous. The guy who wants to keep the bad instincts in line and is working hard to reform the other guy is just as real as the other.
    I guess this is all connected to that idea or superstition about the unconscious being the real self.

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  3. Daniel Nichols

    Me, I’m a fundamentally unpleasant person with occasional wonderful thoughts…

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  4. Grumpy

    I think ‘in vino veritas’ means that one might tell the truth about something when one is drunk. That is not the same thing as ‘revealing one’s true self’. One’s true self might want to keep it secret. There isn’t an authentic self in there waiting to get out!

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  5. Mac

    “There isn’t an authentic self in there waiting to get out!”
    Right, that was one of the things I meant to be saying, that there is no single true self. I wrote that in a distracted hurry (I was supposed to be working last night, not blogging) and didn’t get that idea in. I just added a bit to at least mention it.
    But I think “in vino” does cover the situation where some aspect of oneself that one would prefer to suppress pops out and makes itself unpleasantly known. I see your distinction, but it still seems of a piece to me with telling a truth that one would otherwise not have told.

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  6. Mac

    Daniel’s comment spent several hours in the spam catcher, which I remembered to check this morning. Yeah, Daniel, me too.

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  7. Grumpy

    Dan, so true of me too, and the thoughts come from a book

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  8. Robert Gotcher

    I’m certainly unpleasant in many ways and at many times, but I doubt that I could say that I am a fundamentally unpleasant person. God has been working on me for 53 years. I hate to think that His transforming power has had no significant effect. Although in my worst moments it sure feels like it.

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  9. Rob G

    Ever hear the Jackie Mason routine where he goes to a psychiatrist who wants to help him “find his true self?” Jackie says, “what if we find him and I don’t like him? Do I still have to pay you? Why I should I pay you for my other self? Send your bill to HIM and let HIM pay it!” It’s a very funny bit — probably on youtube.

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  10. Mac

    Funny. There is a casino over on the Mississippi coast which has an advertising slogan that’s something about “finding yourself” there. Sort of a reduction ad absurdum of the idea.

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  11. Mac

    Robert, yeah, in my heart of hearts I don’t really think I’m such a bad guy. Still, I can appall myself sometimes.

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  12. Robert Gotcher

    Me, too. And I can appall others at times as well.

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  13. Paul

    I’m fundamentally quite pleasant, myself, but bone idle.

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  14. Daniel Nichols

    I’m not really an unpleasant person, at least I don’t think so; children and women generally like me, even though I can be intemperate in my rhetoric. I just thought that was a really good line. :^)

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  15. Mac

    Dogs tend to like me.

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  16. Janet

    Cows are fascinated by me.
    AMDG

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  17. Mac

    Here’s a good example of bad: yesterday on the way home from work I came that close to flipping off another driver–while I was praying the rosary.
    Which is the real me: the one with the rosary, or the one cursing the guy in the Mustang?

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  18. Janet

    The real you is a child of God, made in his image and likeness. Eventually, that will be all that is left. All that other stuff is the result of concupiscence and wounds to your soul from things that have happened to you or sins that you chose to commit. You will either get rid of all that other stuff here or in Purgatory. It is, emphatically, not your real self.
    I do that Rosary thing constantly. That could, in addition to your own weakness, be caused by the enemy of your soul prodding you.
    AMDG

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  19. Mac

    Good answer, Janet.

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  20. Grumpy

    This is not relevant exactly, but some of you may recall I pray the rosary at the gym, when I run on the ellipticals. We got some really sophisticated ellipticals – they have simulated mountai trails, which I love, and TV, which other people watch. So Monday I was there trying to say the joyful mysteries for three mentally ill people I know. And the girl on the next elliptical was watching Sex and the City. I never saw it before, but I recognized it from the actresses, and within seconds, I was hooked. There is me, trying to say the joyful mysteries and meantime getting distracted and trying to sneak a glance at Sex in the City!

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  21. Grumpy

    It had subtitles for the hard of hearing.

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  22. Mac

    Heh. Perfect. And definitely relevant.

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  23. Grumpy

    Man I was AGOG!

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  24. Mac

    That’s funny. I saw a bit of that show once, and quickly turned it off–not out of any moral or artistic scruple but because I thought the people were insufferable. But put me in front of almost any action movie, and I’m hooked. Well, at least for a while. I actually stopped watching the 3rd or 4th Die Hard movie partway through because it was so lame.

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  25. Paul

    An internet search I just carried out for a translation I’m working on yielded (among others things) the result: Low self-esteem is the root of all problems.

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  26. Marianne

    Like Grumpy, I, too, got hooked on Sex and the City within minutes. I think I ended up watching several episodes.
    Funny, Mac, that you said you turned it off because you thought the people were insufferable. That’s absolutely true and maybe that’s exactly the draw for women. I know that I’ve always been both put off by all the games girls/women play and fascinated by them.

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  27. Mac

    That’s the real hard-core stuff, Paul. Some years ago there was much levity in other parts of the country when California initiated some sort of offical government project or commission for the enhancement of self-esteem.
    I never have understood that idea at all. I got as far as this guy’s three major points and that was enought. “You deserve affluence”!

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  28. Mac

    I’ve gotten the impression that the audience for Sex and the City is roughly 99% female, so there is some huge difference there in the way men and women react to the show. I would expect the audience for Call The Midwife to be predominantly female, but men can enjoy it–I don’t think I’m a freak in that respect. But SatC…I didn’t really give much thought to what I didn’t like, but thinking about it now, the word “narcissism” comes to mind. They had toxic levels of it. The women in Call the Midwife don’t have any more than the ordinary.

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  29. Louise

    I’ve never seen Sex and the City. The title alone puts me off. But I couldn’t tell you whether or not I’d like it without seeing an episode. Maybe I should watch one to see if I would like it.

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  30. Louise

    I’ve seen what depression can do to someone’s personality. In such a case, I felt that this person was “not his real self.”
    But as for Reese Witherspoon, well I know I’ve said or done dumb things while drunk (and even sober!) so I’m not judging her, but I’m inclined to think the things inside us that we’d rather suppress/pretend weren’t there will tend to come out when our inhibitions are lowered.
    If I have to be honest, I bet I would use that “Don’t you know who I am?” line if I were rich and famous – even though I think it’s pretty stupid!

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  31. Louise

    I’m pretty sure I’d like to be in a position where “Don’t you know who I am?” would make sense!

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  32. Louise

    (But don’t tell anyone. This isn’t the Real Me. The Real Me thinks that fame would be hideous. Although the Real Me and all the other Mes would quite like a decent fortune. But I’m not avaricious. I just like money).

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  33. Robert Gotcher

    It is a good thing, then, that like of money is NOY the root of all evil.

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  34. Mac

    I can’t really imagine being in the “Do you know who I am?!?” position. But I really sort of doubt I would do that. It doesn’t much appeal to either the Real or Feigned Me. Though I might surprise myself if I were really in that position.

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  35. Louise

    I think if I were drunk and angry enough…

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  36. Marianne

    I’d also like to believe that I wouldn’t resort to a “do you know who I am,” but then I remember reading an interview with Joan Baez way back in the 1960s in which she said that fame had really unsettled her sense of equilibrium. And I think she was a fairly well-grounded person to begin with.

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  37. Mac

    I’ve always thought big-time fame is a calamity.

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  38. Louise

    The Real Me agrees with you, Maclin.

    Reply

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