01/30/2008: "The Danger of Duality"

Batman is a famous comic book superhero who is troubled by his parents who were murdered by a horrible criminal, later found out to be The Joker his arch-nemesis in the comic book series. Bruce Wayne or his official name when not in his Batman role, later decides to fight crime for the sake or revenge to protect the streets and people of Gotham City to prevent what happened to him, to anyone else. The issue we are discussing here is his duality of persona.

As Bruce Wayne he is an aspiring bachelor seeking love and family, most likely to make up for the great loss he felt as a child. As Batman he is the exact opposite, not evil, but very cold and indifferent while focusing on his goal to protect the citizens against crime. Of all stories of issues with duality his is one of the most well known not just because of the popularity of his superhero character, but also because it's a common psychological issue in many of us that experience a great tragedy in our lives.

From deep trauma we manifest persona's and even more interesting we only show them to certain people. We are one person to our spouses, another to our friends, another to our employers, and another to our family. Dualities can stay as but only two persona's, or as I just stated they can digress further into several sub categories of personalities we display to others.

We all wear masks in life, this is true, and sometimes we hide behind our other personalities because of wanting to hide things from others, and other times it's because we specifically want to appear a certain way to others.

In the end there is no way anyone can keep you from developing these separate persona's of character. One isn't to say whether they can sometimes actually be helpful for you though perhaps in your careers. However too much acting or hiding behind masks, can be dangerous. If you become overly dependent on parts of your personality that are extremely different from the real you, you might alienate yourself away from friends and family. I think the best advice would be to always remember that those persona's should be for a helpful reason, such as being successful at work or showing the proper character to your children and such at the right times. In closing never forget who you really are, and the real you is who your spouse fell in love with, your employer originally hired, and your children recognize as their parent. Don't lose that or you might lose them.