On Containing Multitudes

Writer: Caroline Ailanthus

A friend of mine recently discovered there is more than one of her. The true name of her condition would not be familiar to most readers, but “multiple personality disorder,” an old and not especially accurate term, will get you in the right conceptual ballpark.

It sounds so exotic, doesn’t it? Like something no actual human being could be or have? That’s how we usually talk about things that are too outside the norm, experts who don’t have the condition informing laypeople who, they assume, don’t have it either. That human beings vary seems an alien concept. So let me just say it—having more than one personality as a result of some trauma isn’t common, but it’s not weird, either. For my friend, it’s entirely normal.

Her discovery has gotten me thinking about the ways that other people contain multitudes, too.

For example, when I remind myself to bring in a load of firewood later, who is doing the reminding? Who is being reminded?

When I want to go for an energizing walk but instead stay comfy-cozy on my nice, warm couch, what, exactly, is going on? Is there another me with its own agenda that can thwart the will of the “I” who wants to go for a walk?

That human beings are multiple is an insight probably as old as humanity. The spirit, the soul, and the body. The body and the mind. The emotional self and the intellect. The ba and the ka. Depending on whom you ask, the terms and the relationships involved vary, but the overall theme is consistent. And then there are alter-egos, professional personas, actors and their characters, children and their imaginary friends, muses….

What the heck are muses? I don’t mean a person one finds inspiring, I mean a muse in the original sense, the daughters of Memory, spirits who deliver poems and stories and so forth to the minds of writers and others. It’s an ancient Greek idea, but one immediately understandable to modern creatives, because that’s what it feels like sometimes, a delivery of inspiration from somewhere else, some one else, a gift that cannot be willed or predicted but only received with gratitude as a grace. That’s what it feels like, but is that what it is? Are muses independently, objectively real beings?  If they aren’t why do they feel like they are?

Speaking of writers, there is the phenomenon I, and probably most other fiction writers, are familiar with—books and even characters arguing with us. My current work-in-progress fought with me for several years, not allowing me to proceed with writing, nor allowing me to stop in favor of some other project. The book that has finally allowed itself to be written (I’m in revisions now) is not the book I intended to write. When books argue with writers, the books always win.

I have had characters argue with me, but the ones I’m working closely with at the moment are more cooperative—or perhaps I am more cooperative with them, rendering arguing unnecessary? Anyway, they do seem like real people, people who are not me, people I can have thoughts and feelings about. And yet they must live inside my head, as they don’t appear to live anywhere else. I can watch movies with them—they don’t always like the same movies I do. I can adopt their body language, their physical persona, at will, at least when I’m otherwise alone and so not distracted. From talking with other writers, I can say none of this is unusual.

I’m not making light of my friend’s condition. I’m not joking or engaging in metaphor. I am suggesting that the neural equipment she uses to create her alters is the same equipment all of us, or at least most of us, have and use for other things—and to this facet of the human mind we owe, among other things, fiction.

Here’s one way to look at it:

If a personality was an eternal, immutable identity, then it wouldn’t change as a result of brain injury, nor could multiple personalities develop in the same brain. So what is a personality? It seems to be collaboratively created by many different neural structures and processes, each of which have their own things going on. The self is thus a project, a creation, a character.

The first and last one a writer ever develops.

Caroline Ailanthus is a novelist, blogger, and free-lance writer. She is the author of two novels, To Give a Rose and Ecological Memory, as well as two experimental serialized novels, School with No Name, which has been completed, and Pilgrim of Oz, which is still gaining new posts. She also writes two blogs, Climate in Emergency and News From Caroline, and has published numerous pieces of short non-fiction. Caroline has a BA in Environmental Leadership and an MS in Conservation Biology. When she’s not writing, she is usually either walking her beagles or making a complete mess of the kitchen.

Website: Caroline Ailanthus