This weekend I watched Smashed, a film by James Ponsoldt. In it, a young woman with an aesthetic and satisfactory life realizes that she’s an alcoholic. Her arc is about taking off her masks and facing her true self, a process not without consequences. Another film of Ponsoldt’s with a similar theme, The Spectacular Now, had an impact on me two years ago, a little after spring break. I took its theme to heart and—only months later—let my life negatively demonstrate that theme. But I had that in for myself for a long time. Watching another powerful film from the same director is a little scary then.
After watching Smashed, I was in a reverie of reflection. I went all the way back to childhood. What did I want? What did I love? What did I hate? Of what was I ashamed? What shaped me? What disguises did I begin constructing for myself? Essentially, I remembered (re-membered) my primitive disasters, recalled the ensuing shame, and analyzed the fig leaves I’d sewed myself, the routes by which I’d sought to escape.
The next day, Baron and I smoked pipes on his veranda. He had just gone on a similar journey—looking at every picture he’s tagged in on Facebook, from 15 to 29 (something I’ve done before, as well). He said he “face-grabbed” several times (reflexively covering your face with your hands) in response to his embarrassment at his teenage self. As he progressed through the years, the face-grabs became more infrequent. But he saw who he was and who he was trying to be at each stage. I recommend this exercise, which, though it may be done vainly, can also be done honestly—the way Baron did it.
And last night, we watched Birdman by Alejandro Iñàrritu. It’s about this same thing.
Being a human is about trying to become a self. I think most of us are aware of what we’re working against in ourselves, what we’re trying to overcome, or to escape. I expect that many—when they investigate this—quickly see that they’re after redemption. We feel inadequate—perhaps guilty. Experiences confirm our doubts about ourselves—the bad one’s imprint us and inform our quests for authenticity and justification. We begin constructing disguises and costumes to pretend, to convince others and ourselves, that we are adequate. Actually, we want to convince others and ourselves that we are glorious. We don’t become whole unless we strip naked, encounter our shame and guilt, and get what we need—which our egos transmute into glory and godhood—which is really to be loved. Raymond Carver characterizes what each of us is after like this, “To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.”
That’s the epigraph to Birdman. Michael Keaton’s character, Riggan Thomson is a washed-up Hollywood actor who is no stranger to disguises. In the early 90’s, he starred in a successful superhero franchise (sound familiar?), and in the wake of some disasters (a failed marriage, the realization that he was a bad father, his daughter going to rehab), he sets out to do something that matters, something authentic, by which he can become a self. The voice of his superhero persona (Birdman, i.e. his ego) grunts in his ear, critiquing his potentially genuine quest for authenticity, tempting him to revert to old means of identity making.
On Thomson’s mirror is a card that reads, “A thing is a thing not what is said of that thing.” Brilliant. You can interpret it many ways. Here’s the way I see it in relation to this issue: neither praise, blame, self-affirmation, nor self-criticism can clarify what you are; you are what you are and authenticity necessitates squaring yourself to that what. But we must ask, what makes us that what? The prevailing answer of our time is that we are our actions. If you behave well, you are good; if you behave badly, you are bad. If you act glorious you are glorious; if you behave ingloriously—you see the point. Existence precedes essence.
The Gospel flies in the face of this. It has a universal analysis of all human selves: there is none who does righteousness; all have sinned and fallen short; we are enemies of God. Brutal. But, if you believe that, Christianity flies in the face of your wallowing in self-loathing—authentic as that may be. The Gospel does not confront you with yourself without confronting your self with God’s absolute, inexorable, irreversible love for you. He gave up Godhood and heaven to come suffer with you in your environment and demonstrate that he loves you. You are beloved.
I think the Gospel agrees that “a thing is a thing and not what is said of that thing.” But it goes further. What God says about a thing makes a thing what it is. On the cross, God says we are beloved. God says that those who have faith in his act of definition are righteous. As my friend Jeff says, “Acceptance precedes essence.” (He says he wants to get that tattooed on him, but, so far, he’s all talk).
To become authentic you must will to be your self. To become a self you must ground yourself transparently in the Power that constituted you. To ground yourself transparently in the Power that constituted you, you must accept that power’s verdict of you. If you accept that Power’s verdict of you, must accept that Power’s reversal of the verdict—the power’s application of the verdict to itself and its subsequent attribution of its essence to you. (That’s just a formulation of the Gospel in Kierkegaardian, existentialist terms—Søren did it much better in The Sickness Unto Death). Jesus speaks of this process in John 3 as being born again. Here’s his formulation of the Gospel:
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world should be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.” (John 3:16-21)