The Shadow Self (Who is Your Shadow)

So my parents and I were on the way to see Horrible Bosses yesterday (which I thought was very funny despite a few problems with the story) when we started to about my brother. Apparently my brother is not getting along with his roommate. I mean, it's not like they're fighting or anything like that, they just NEVER talk.

His roommate is super religious (I mean, not like he's tried to convert my brother or anything, it's just there.) More than than extremely quiet, which my mom's private response was "THIS IS WHAT IT'S LIKE TRYING TO TALK YOU!" But I digress.

My dad was joking about how my brother's roommmate is his "shadow self." I'd never heard this term and so I asked him to elaborate. Apparently Carl Jung (a contemporary of Freud) talked about the shadow self being the dark side of the ego. It's the part of you that you don't like and it's always there, but sometime suppressed. He goes on to talk about how sometimes the people that you instinctively hate are manifestations of your shadow self. (If you want to read more about it, here's the wikipedia entry. I didn't do super a lot of research okay.)

Anyway, despite the fact that Jung's view on psychology is problematic and wrong, I think the idea of a shadow self is really interesting. I started to think about who my shadow self might be. The kind of person that I just instinctively hate. And then it hit me.

The girl from the class me and Ada had together. You might know the one.

For the purposes of this post I'm going to call her "Stephanie." There's usually a Stephanie in my literary and creative classes. Stephanie is a girl who dominates conversation. She talks about her own personal projects and eats up all the class time discussing obscure parts of the literature with the teacher. This not only detracts from people that want to have other conversations, but she brings up the same things AGAIN and AGAIN.

In my case, Stephanie always talked about how translated poetry is problematic because sometimes there's just no equivalent for a word when you translate it into another language. (Which is a good point. It is a problem.) Then she WENT ON to hammer this fact into the ground until I just wanted to scream, "Fine, Stephanie. We'll never read any poetry unless we can read both languages and translate it line by line. I'm going to have to go back and learn ancient Greek for the Odyssey, but I'm sure it'll be worth it. WILL THAT MAKE YOU HAPPY?"

She also talked about how she had this fabulous job lined up in London but she didn't take it because she loved her nieces so much which A. If it's true is SUPER annoying and braggy and B. Isn't true.

But getting back to the point at hand.

I think that Stephanie might be my shadow self. At least, she's the kind of person that I actively avoid trying to be. Self-important, dominating in conversations and sort of an unbearable know-it-all. I think there are things that I hate more about my self (lack of self-esteem, weight, etc.), but I really fear becoming a Stephanie. It's someone I really don't want to be, especially when it comes to my own writing.

I think that all writers get into a swing every now and then where they think, "Everything I create is the purest poetry!" but I want to be able to look at my work critically. I want to be confident but still realistic about the things I make. Especially because I want to be able to make the tough calls that will make my writing better. (I believe the phrase is, "You have to murder your children in a bathtub with an ice pick." I'm 90 percent sure.)

There's also the fact that a good portion of the time I made poop jokes aimed at a fifth grade reading level. So clearly I have no business getting a big head about my writing.

With all that in mind, I ask you this. What is your "shadow shelf"? What kind of person do you instinctively hate? Who do you fear becoming and why?