Invisible heroes

There was a time when we could still be invisible. There was a time, not so long ago, when you could just blend into the background and nobody really knew you were there. You didn't have to be seen if you didn't want to be. The masses that surrounded you provided a degree of anonymity that we simply took for granted. Oh, sure, everybody was pushing you to "get out there", to "make yourself known", to "be your own person". That's what a competitive society expects, at any rate. And Warhol's dictum about everyone's 15 minutes of fame brought a few out of the woodwork that didn't necessarily have to be center stage. But, it was possible to stay out of the limelight, out of the spotlight, if you really wanted to.

Those days are long gone. There's nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. More of you is available to more people than you ever dreamed possible. Oh, everything out there is not all accurate, to be sure. There are contradictions and changes and reversals and who knows what else, but there's no real way to put it all together in a coherent picture. You're exposed, but you're incomplete. It all adds up to a something-like-you, but not really you, if you even really know who you are. More and more, that chaotic mass of perceptions and details and factoids is you ... and you for all the world to see.

If you can't get away anymore, what do you do? Like I said before, you have to be aware and take care. But the last time I mentioned that it was all about what's going on outside, out there, in the public -- and, as the FBI and NSA have so often reminded, almost public. The same tactics apply inside, in here where it's just between me, myself and I. Truth be told, that's the far more crucial realm, and it could be the last great frontier, if we had but the courage to go for it.

For all the chaos and mayhem most of them tend to cause, one of the fundamental tenets of all major religions has been this not-to-be-taken-lightly inner journey. The charge inscribed across the portal to the temple to Apollo at Delphi stated it about as simply as it gets: "Know Thyself". Throughout most of our history as human beings, this Quest, I'll call it, has played a central, constitutive part of our mythologies. Campbell's Hero With A Thousand Faces was part and parcel of our understanding of ourselves. Alas, we demythologized the world, became advanced, made progress, scientized and sanitized ourselves, and now our lives have become rather empty of meaning, but full of things and gadgets and opinions and attitudes, or whatever else it is from facing ourselves.

Back in the late 80s, there was a glimmer of hope that we might pick up the torch again, for example with Bly's Little Book on the Human Shadow, but the Wall fell and Capitalism allegedly seized the day and we were able to get intoxicated once again on things and progress and money and burning more oil and heating up the planet. If you're consumed with getting ahead, you've simply got no time for getting into yourself. Your Ego, sure, but the rest? Not so much.

After all, it's a risky endeavor with an uncertain outcome, and what is more, it could demand an heroic amount of effort, or even be, heaven forbid, dangerous. What kind of fool runs an errand like that?

Ask Shakespeare.