Greek to Me
Made In The Shade
by Michael Raysses
Perspective is everything. Unless it’s not. Begrudgingly, I acknowledge that it is, at least for right now because cautionary gusts of words swirl around me, buffeting me with their message—the price for economic salvation is $700 billion, and the time to buy is now. I understand the power and fluidity of that aphorism. My response is to ask how two-for-one coupons fit into the proposed remedy. But I digress…
As themes go, “shadow” is not exempt from the strictures of perspective. It’s one of those subjects you think you understand. That is, until you ask yourself from what point of view are you approaching it? Are you referring to the outline of a darkened shape of something bathed in light? Are you talking about the relative darkness in a place that is cut off from direct light? Have you even accounted for Carl Jung’s theory of the Shadow: repressed parts of our personality that we keep hidden from the light because they represent our inherent (and shameful) dark natures? But with “shadow” as your focus, questions designed to shed light on their topic do just that, leaving you with an understanding of the underlying intricacy of the topic at hand.
It’s time for shadow to emerge from its own, um, shadow, and I am just the guy to midwife that transition.
I have always been fascinated by my family’s personal mythology and lore: stories of relatives both dead and living that intrigued me beyond their surface value. I instinctively felt that0 th0e forces that acted on them in their time had somehow been passed onto me, and that those things would manifest in my own life, and in their own fashion. Two cases come readily to mind.
The first was a male relative on my father’s side of the family. In the mid-1800s, he had found his way to America, where he began mining for gold. As the story goes, he discovered a substantial vein, one that yielded a sum that would have been enough to sustain wealth for the family for generations to come. But my prospecting ancestor was bushwhacked before he could legally stake his claim, and the gold never found its way into my family’s possession.
The lesson? If money doesn’t corrupt, it will most certainly kill.
Another such relative was my father’s oldest brother, my Uncle Nick. 21 years older than my father, Nick was his family’s de facto patriarch. Though my grandfather was an amazing musician and storyteller, he was a negligent father. He left the task of raising his 13 children to his eldest son. The act of raising a family while still a child in his own right made Nick a vicious disciplinarian; it honed his sense of right and wrong to an extent few could achieve.
Nick exalted principle over reason. Case in point: he became an avowed Communist when to do so was hazardous, to say the least. One day while at work cutting hair, he became embroiled in an argument with a customer. It escalated into a physical outburst, with the customer getting the better of my uncle by twisting his right arm behind his back. When his adversary explained that he would release his arm as soon as he renounced his political stance, Nick replied, “Better that you should break my arm than I break my word!” Which is exactly what happened. Being the breadwinner of the household, Nick’s allegiance to his politics cost his family dearly.
The lesson? Nothing matters more than your word.
Now I never did take up prospecting, and it never occurred to me to be a barber, but both episodes have had great impact within my psyche. And the place where I negotiate that impact?
That would be my shadow.
Growing up working class, you would think upward mobility would have been a clear-cut goal. Not so. I literally kept money at arm’s length: if an opportunity came up that posed considerable financial prospect, I reflexively held it at bay, if not in contempt.
And as for being a man of my word, on some level I knew I could never meet my Uncle Nick’s standard. Though I tried, I failed miserably. And I dealt with those failures by denying they ever took place or by explaining my behavior in a way that portrayed me in only a flattering light.
The shadow is the place where I came to an understanding of who I really am and how I can exist in the presence of traits that are a part of me without exclusively defining me. So now when I pick up a check at a restaurant for a group of people with whom I have just had lunch, I know it isn’t pure generosity that fuels the gesture—it is partially my inability to endure the unbearably awkward debate of who ate what and what do I owe that attends those situations.
The much harder issue to reconcile is the one dealing with my infidelity to an ideal I could never achieve. I have surrendered the standard my uncle embodied, which has allowed me to have a clearer understanding of who I am: a flawed soul, equipped with the willingness to engage myself within my own shadow because that’s where the polar extremes of absolute good and pure evil come to a truce, giving way to what can realistically be achieved.
The cost of all this negotiation? Well, let’s just say it’s a lot less than $700 billion. And that’s a deal from any perspective.