ID 101 - 8: Lil' One

I AM SO DUMB!!!!!!!

It has taken all this effort to finally acknowledge and recognise my missing me. There is another “me” inside “me”.

From what I think I have ascertained, I, the personality that is writing this paper, came to be at the beginning of secondary school, around the age of ten. [ED. we later found out that there were teens too, and 5 was is fact the 5th revision of our host]

Until then, I believe Lil’ one did not know how to deal with things. Until then he only dealt with adults. Other children were ghostly figures with whom he did not interact much.

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Who hasn’t watched and grown to love The Big Bang Theory TV show? Almost everyone I know is at least familiar with it and find it funny.

Yet, why is it funny? It’s a show about “normal” people making fun of “nerds”. There is the occasional “revenge of the geek” theme, but it is exceedingly rare. Usually it is about hapless people, going through their boring life, providing cheap laughs.

Absolutely not my kind of show. It seems quite discriminatory. Fossilizing negative stereotypes. Perpetuating victimisation and vilification.

Leonard and Sheldon Discussing Theories

Scorpion is more my kind of tv show. The “revenge of the nerds” is constant. They keep overcoming their own stereotypical foibles to save the world, episode after episode. Strength of character, adaptability, genius, resilience, and similar qualities are what transpire from this vastly distinct perspective.

Scorpion

So, why have I binged it so much? Why do I find it so captivating?

The answer is simple. I am Leonard. And I am Sheldon. I am Leonard in how I behave and interact with people. I am Sheldon in the way I think.

The two are in constant conflict just as the two characters in the TV show. And the conversations they have are remarkably similar to the conversations in my head between my Sheldon and my Leonard.

In fact, Leonard and Sheldon Discussing Theories above shows a common occurrence. Two personalities discussing theories in front of a whiteboard.

What does it mean? I am not sure.

[At the age of 10-11] I created a new version of me that replaced my sensory overloads with bouts of rage.

That could explain why I don’t remember anything before the age of 11ish. And not everything after that.

So, when he was getting bullied, or beaten up, I [we now discovered 11 did that] would step in. When he needed money, I would steal it [we now discovered 14 did that]. When he was breaking, I would take over [in fact that was #1]. Eventually, I was the one that threw “father” against a wall and stopped him hurting him [11]. I was the one who slept on the cold benches in Central Station [14]. I was the one who kept running away from home [#1]. I was the one who endured what he couldn’t anymore [the teens shared the burden of survival at the time]. 

And that probably explains why so many times I [my other selves] found myself in situations I didn’t know how I got into. A gun pointed to my head. A bunch of people beating me up. A group of old men taking it in turn and passing me around like an inflatable doll. Running away from the police. Making friends with unsavoury characters. Running away from ... And the list goes on.

There have been different versions of me. At one point there was “hyena”. An insensitive and cruel boy who enjoyed and laughed at other people’s pain [the narrative is somewhat different now, but at the time that was what we knew] … he didn’t last long. He was neither me, nor was he lil’ one.

Eventually, a little at a time, I [#1] almost completely took over.

As I am rekindling my connection with Lil’ one I am noticing I have missed so much. I believe HE IS WHO I AM MISSING. But I guess I AM WHO HE WANTED TO BE.

But so far, this is again speculation. How can I make sure? How can we balance that? What would be the outcome of doing so?

We started to talk

Since I was able to extrapolate his voice from the others in my head, we have grown much closer.

He comes out when I am completely alone. He popped his head out once when a friend was here. But it was just a split second. He run away and hid straight away, almost instantly.

I know when he’s coming out “to play” because I start watching myself feeling and thinking. Sometimes my brain starts buzzing (see The voices).

He is not like my other personalities. He doesn’t talk to me. When he says something, it’s usually related to the Universe, Consciousness, Quantum existence, and related topics. But he’s talking TO/AT me, we are not chatting or exchanging opinions like the others. Or he explains things to me. For example, my Unified Theory of the Universe is not mine. He explained it to me. He wrote all those pages of notes, and those whiteboard annotations I am spreading throughout this document [we now know it is a little more complicated than that and that will be a topic in ID 103].

Also, he is quite possessive of our brain. When he is around, he takes over. There is no sharing.

But he does share his feelings. Eventually. At first, even though I do feel those emotions, they are not mine. As those emotions begin to become attached to memories of facts and events it hits me. Those are my feelings. That is how I felt at the time. And now … they hurt as they did then … sensory overload is my warning to stop … and he stops.

When he is not having flashbacks, I get something completely different. Pure, unadulterated joy. That is a feeling I haven’t integrated yet. I see him happy. I feel his ecstasy. Yet it is not mine. I want that. I want to feel it. I never experienced something like that, and I absolutely want some.

Like a wishbone

So, it seems it is becoming beyond doubt now. There is another “personality”. But I don’t feel it is particularly different from me. It feels like a fishbone. I am one end, and he is another of the same piece of “it”.

Sometimes I watch myself. That’s when I start believing it is all real. Others I see him in me. That’s when I begin questioning my sanity.

It is difficult to understand where either of us begins or ends, but it is quite possible to see the differences.

We are different products of the same earthly experiences but coming from the same identity. And I mean Identity in the true sense of the word. Existential Identity. Transcendental Identity. Soul-defined Identity.

 

The situation now (NOW as a state of mind more than a temporal qualification!)

I have always had a strange relationship with Time. I don’t seem to operate in time as other people do.

While I am punctual, and respect all the social norms related to time, my head and my mind do work outside of the confines of time. At least in relation to past and present. When I was a child, I could also project my mind forward in time, with some limitations. But I seem to have lost that ability (more on this in a few paragraphs)

For example, lately, my head seems to spend a lot of time in the sixties. More than I do in the now. I am there. I travel back in time; I am that child that was there then. I see what he sees. Feel what he feels. Hear what he hears. Smell and taste what he does.

It’s not voluntary. Well, I started the process voluntarily. But now it seems I’ve opened some kind of tap that I cannot close. All I can do is allow my head to go back there. Relieve every moment. Remember the pain. Survive. Again.

As I relieve those anguishing memories, I do question why am I doing it? How can I stop it?

The answer is simple. I owe him. My young self. He said he’d never forget. Yet I have forgotten. I betrayed him for my peace of mind. Just as “they” betrayed him for their peace of mind.

I was willing to give up everything he is, just so that I could be “normal”. Yet he is everything that is good in me. Admittedly, he was a little complicit. He created me. He hid when he felt he was making it difficult for us. He hid when someone would take advantage and I needed to step in to do damage limitation. He would hide, and I would help him which eventually meant that I was pushing him away.

I think we both agree that it was necessary. We weren’t ready. We didn’t have enough information. We did not have enough experience. We weren’t strong enough.

But now we do. Now is the time to find a way to co-exist. To be together. A balance between hopeless intelligence and stupid strength.

So, the first step now, is for me to remember. The next will be to create an updated version of me that include both of us. A version that is safe, as much as it is uniquely endearing.

 

A fresh chance to like myself

And as I reach this stage of my analysis I cannot help being amazed. The way our mind (consciousness), head (thinking), and brain (onboard computer) operate and cooperate.

For example, in my case,

1. at first my head found it couldn’t process all information (software, not hardware problem, i.e., emotions, brain melts, etc.)
2. So, the head temporarily decided to split in two. This is the brain’s equivalent of getting a new filing cabinet
3. The brain OS complied and provided storage and processing capacity
4. When it became possible to attempt a resolution, the mind used certain triggers to initiate the appropriate procedures to make me aware.
5. Whatever process is going on in my head/mind/brain now to repair the head

This is not dissimilar from what happens in the world of IT:

1. Several unhandled exceptions are found.
2. A temporary patch is issued to study the problem in more details. Data collection would be split into separate folders. This would obviously change some parts of the behaviour of the apps concerned.
3. OS is updated to enable the patch to work
4. The issue is placed on a bug list, and a permanent solution is sought/developed. When this is ready, an alert is sent out that a major update is available
5. The update takes place.

We are a fractal of the Universe, and everything we create is a fractal of us.