Early Morning of the Soul

Often lately I find myself preoccupied by what feels like an odd question: Who am I?

You'd think that wouldn't be one of life's true toughies to answer, not when you're 43 years old and a reasonably sentient human being. The thing is, it's one of those questions you can answer from about 62 different directions, from the most basic level to the seriously, geez-you-overthought-that, super-complex.

I could answer the question in marketing terms, for example, situating myself just past the middle of the 25-54 male demographic. Toss in a few other data points (Arizona resident, white-collar worker, post-graduate degrees, registered Independent, divorced, no children, dog owner, subscriber to Sports Illustrated, the New Yorker, Wired, owner of an iPhone) and you might have enough top-line information to begin roughing out my identity. Of course, if there's one thing making ads for a living has taught me, it's that all the demographic data in the world won't tell you much about any one person – with the exception of the person interpreting the data.

There's plenty of other answers I could throw out there. My name is David Leibowitz. That's an answer. I also could give you my Social Security number and my birthday. Then you could run my credit, delve into my financial past and get a sense of what I'm about. That would no doubt appeal to private detectives, journalists, ad agency strategists and political operatives, anyone whose guiding principle is the idea that we are the things we seek to keep hidden.

Another possible answer might come in the form of a narrative. That's a favorite of mine, because I love stories, love telling them and teasing them apart. Stories take a while to unfurl, though, especially something as ambitious as an autobiography. Beyond the investment of time, my story could end up boring the hell out of you, particularly because I'm by nature a private person likely to leave out the really juicy parts (since they're none of your business, dammit).

So what's the answer du jour then, the official August 21, 2008 version of who I am?

In his essay "The Evolution of the Shadow," Jungian analyst Edward C. Whitmont writes:

Ask someone to give a description of the personality type which he finds most despicable, most unbearable and hateful, and most impossible to get along with, and he will produce a description of his own repressed characteristics – a self-description which is utterly unconscious and which therefore always and everywhere tortures him as he receives its effect from the other person. These very qualities are so unacceptable to him precisely because they represent his own repressed side; only that which we cannot accept within ourselves do we find impossible to live with in others.

Lately I've been gripped by the implications of that statement, what it says about our dislikes and aversions and how our projections of those negative attitudes function as a window into one's identity. Who am I, you ask? Whitmont answers, "At least in part, at least unconsciously, you are what you most dislike in others."

If that sounds like a pretty nutty hypothesis, I guess I could hold up as proof some very public examples from the worlds of politics and religion, moral crusaders like Elliot Spitzer, Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker. Whitmont (if he hadn't been dead for 10 years) might tell us that each of these men fought so hard to be perceived as "good" and to point out the "evil" in others precisely because they couldn't face their own shadow self. The harder they struggled, the more aggressively they projected onto their fellow man, the more they pressurized these internal dark forces, until their shells could no longer contain their inner roilings. Then, crash.

So what does that mean for me, or for any of us?

Only that one profitable starting way to answer the question "Who am I?" involves asking the question, "What is it that I can't stand in others?"

My answers:

I hate liars. Whether it's my insecurities, my deep skepticism or my inquisitive nature, I tend to tear into the statements made by those around me, looking for falsehoods, spin and signs of manipulation. When I ferret out bullshit statements, I'm generally quick to anger, quick to attack, quick to write the liar out of the story of my life.

I hate laziness. The sight of others' wasted potential pains me. Someone who makes a mistake out of lack of knowledge or out of well-meaning intent I'm usually quick to forgive; someone who fails out of negligence or for lack of motivation I'm usually fast to damn. Often, I find myself trying to judge the nature of someone's wrongs, attempting to decide whether they "deserve" forgiveness. The lazy rarely fare well.

I hate unjustifiable pride. What do I mean, what sort of pride goads me into a triple-digit pulse rate? Not the folks who feel good about hard work, a job done well or even an unsuccessful but valiant effort. More, I mean those whose sense of accomplishment reeks of being out of proportion to the task accomplished. You know who I mean: The guy who gets a client to approve something that was obviously good, yet brags like he's brought together the Arabs and the Jews, or the YMCA hoops player who hits a 12-foot jump shot but talks trash like he's Lebron knocking down a deep corner three with :02 left in overtime. Maybe that's just using tortured metaphors (the kind I like best!) to say that I dislike arrogance. Probably so, but in the same way that I often find myself looking to shine the light to a lie, I can typically be counted on to try to "take the piss" out of the overly prideful.

Wow. You see where this is going, don't you? Not a pretty picture.

If "the projection principle" is correct and we are what we most dislike, then I'm a lazy, arrogant liar.

Hmmm.

As much as my inclination is to say, "Nah, not me, nuh uh," I'm going to instead opt for broader disclosure.

Guilty as charged.

I'll take the easiest one to admit first: Arrogance. I've been told that enough times to know that so many different people can't all be wrong. What is it they're sensing? I imagine it's my tendency to try too hard – to appear smart, to keep my defenses up, to hide my emotions. That overbearing effort creates a distance others can find cold and unpleasant.

Lying is harder to cop to aloud. Still, it's true (and yes, I realize the irony of asking you to believe an admitted liar who is admitting to lying). Why do I lie? Sometimes it's to avoid conflict or to stay defended (see Leibowitz, David arrogance above). Other times I lie out of shame, or because I fear the truth will render me a pathetic, weak, hateful figure. Everyone, myself included (myself most of all, perhaps) has a shadow self, that mass of dark, churning urges and baseness. Lies are the cloak the shadow hides behind.

Am I lazy? I believe yes, I am. Not "couch potato" lazy – I tend to always be in motion – but a different sort of lazy, the kind that is satisfied with only living up to a fraction of its potential, the kind that fails to translate insight into action. I'm not saying I believe I should be perfect, or that there aren't other reasons for my failures beyond laziness, but it's there, sitting on my inner couch, eating cool ranch Doritos and watching the Olympics. Whitmont has a nice turn of phrase – "a lack of moral stamina" – that I believe applies here.

So yes, I'm a lazy, arrogant liar. It's not an admission I toss out there lightly. Putting it out there makes me supremely uncomfortable, so much so that it's taken me three days to write the above three paragraphs. But yes, those words do answer the question "Who am I?" and they're an answer as valid as my name or Social Security number.

Fortunately, that answer is not complete. While I am that person, that person isn't all I am. There's an asterisk beside my name (beside all our names), an "also" followed by other characteristics – generosity, protectiveness, playfulness – which I hope offsets the lesser self I've described.

"Who am I?" I guess you could say I am many things, some admirable, some not, some I'm happy to be and some that I would rather not face, things light and things dark. I'm like you and I am not.

And today I am long-winded. Take care.