Legion

An existential crisis is when you peer into yourself, living, and wonder why. It doesn't stop with wondering why you live as you do. It goes into wondering why you live at all, and why you wonder, and why you wonder why you live - and why the person next to you is them and not you... and what all of this wondering and whying is supposed to mean anyways.

And then there are existential dilemmas. These frequently arise in conjuction with existential crises. An existential dilemma is when you encounter paradoxes within the actuality or possibility of being you. Like, you get a glimpse of who you could have been. Or you get glimpses of all the people you are. And you wonder why you're one and not the other. Whether you should be the other. Whether it's wrong to have all these senses of self. Whether it's possible to be Legion without being Satanic. 

Today I had both at once - a dilemma and a crisis. And I thought, as I have thought so many times before, that if I could be God... if I could "spoil some vast eternal plan"... if I could break the bonds of sacred and select, destiny and determination... I would split my psyche. 

I would liberate all the selves in me. Split the psychologist from the chemist and the artist from the doctor, the nurse from the hippie, the missionary from the mom, the administrator from the wannabe zumba junkie, the author from social rights activist. Carbon copy all the experiences and education and heart and distribute a copy to each. And turn them loose. 

"Go. Live. Be free. Achieve your dreams and potential without holding each other down in compromises. Be happy and feel whole. Goodbye." 

So many people say the dividedness in us can unite in some greater God-given fulfillment. But it feels like the more I know God, the clearer the distinctions of me. 

I just don't get why, when I have so little time, He would cram so many people into one little psyche.