Disclaimer: This post deals with varying perspectives, more than likely swears at least thrice and dives into mental health. If that’s not your jam, well, “Piss off, ghost.”
I recently had a conversation with someone about people. My Inner Crew to be specific. The statement was made “Well, they’re not really people.” And suffice it to say, I had to wrap my hands around each other, give the blood a minute to settle and remind myself I’m smart enough to engage without losing it. I’m protective of the Inner Crew. Very. Protective.
But after about 20 seconds of jabber to bring the tension down, we landed on the question: “What do you consider ‘people‘?” For my conversation partner, it’s flesh and bone and physical attributes. Of course my first thought was, “So, just anything that has a pulse is people.” The next thought was, “and the people who don’t have a pulse anymore? Aren’t they still people? just deceased?” Which of course swung the opening for my answer: consciousness, souls and energy working together. Kinda became blatantly obvious that I consider flesh and bone to just be a vessel.
Before I go any deeper into this, let’s garner some context around what the hell I’m actually referring to when I say, “Inner Crew.”
Once Upon a Time…
Kidding. We’re not going that far back. But here’s the background I promised. We have DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder – clinically speaking). I say “we” because there’s an entire crew of us in here. I refer to them as my Inner Crew. Some are chatty, some are not, all are individuals. We aren’t the same person. Shit, we aren’t even the ones who were supposed to surface the most.
I have memories they don’t, they have memories I don’t, and the body has all the memories except common sense and how to use it. But we all share the same vessel; we all have to play nice with the brain space; we all have rules we’re required to follow to keep the synergy going; and we all get into hugging fests and fight club spats like people who have been in close quarters for… well for an eternity, it feels like.
There were some problematic features there for a while. And by all the gods in all the pantheons, did they do some serious lasting damage. One in particular had some pretty nefarious plans for us as a whole. Didn’t work out well for her in the end, though we’re all still recovering. It was a good decision for us to get rid of her… after we started talking to each other. We didn’t always talk. Well I didn’t always talk.
For the longest time, I denied there was anyone else in here. I said the blackouts were just from the head injuries. The days waking up with questionable damage were just me being weird and clumsy. The extra communications and body jerking movements were just the nerve damage. And the blatantly obvious conversations with someone else while not in control of the body (Ol’ Ahab here…), psychosis. Had to be psychosis.
Acknowledgement of the possibility started when coworkers were telling me “You’re like a whole different person” while recounting stories and phrases that I’d never said, would never say and had no memory of saying to them. Reports kept getting dense in the amount of times it’d actually happened until I mentioned it to my little sister. She confirmed a lot of things before I even had the chance to say them out loud. Then I found journals. Not my handwriting, words or sentiment but buried in our stuff. Long journey short, it was a wild ride to acceptance. But I got there, and they were patient about it.
So, What Are People?
People. You want to know what people are? Strange. People are strange. I could argue against “people are meat suits” all day long, but I have to respect the stance. Why? Because it belongs to someone else. Another person has expressed what they consider to be an acceptable level of personhood within their understood existence of “people”. Valid viewpoint, and because I come from the school of infinite realities, I can’t say they’re wrong as a whole. But I also can’t validate it as a whole either.
The perception of what “people” are is usually brought on by experiences and observations. And my convo partner was right in the definition of what a person could be, but there’s also the very real possibility of that not being the whole picture or even just talking about one type of people.
Really think about it. The dead are still people but they no longer have flesh and bone. And those of us with an Inner Crew are people, but there’s also a good chance we’re one of the Crew, too; not the original system. For example, I’m not the default captain that came with this ship. I was the weapons system and anchor. I just happened to be put here after, well after a bunch of shit happened that forced me to take the lovely position of “Primary Person.” I wasn’t flesh and blood, I was just an energy compilation with some synergetic frequencies akin to the body. And when the others are on the surface, they’re also flesh and blood.
Some cultures revere stones and Earth as a person or people. A lot of them do, to be honest. And those who believe in beings that can’t be seen with the naked eye, would you consider them people? Animal-lovers call their non-human buddies people. And who really knows what’s out beyond the void of space, what people must be there. They aren’t us, are they? OR maybe they are.
It’s fucking thought provoking, infuriating, curious and somehow grounding in its infancy.
As a culture, people are a group of individuls who find community, solace and synergetic comfort with one another in a way that allows them to progress in their existence. As a race, it’s a set of individuals who share genetic traits – like being a human. As an ethnicity, it’s the same genetics on a more detailed level, such as region instead of just planet. As an idea, people may just be individuals who persist and can be classified within a group. As a spiritual anchor, people are entities and beings regardless of their physical or aetherial or quantum mechanical build.
Then, People Must Be…
People. Like many things, people can’t really be defined by one definition or another. People are what folks choose to decipher them as. But even if you don’t agree for core reasons or simply don’t have the breadth or extended lense yet to identify more traits of what a person could be, you know what people are. People, in all their many forms, are to be respected. And the perception of what a person is or people are should be fully explored to the best of anyone’s ability. If someone has a view of what people are and it doesn’t match what your view is, maybe take a stroll down their path with them for a while. Take them for a stroke down yours as well. You’d be fucking surprised to find what people consider each other and themselves to be. But to understand, there is one simple universal truth: Understanding requires respect.
Told you it was Pensively Enraging and Engaging.
Have a thought about this topic? Want to air it out on the podcast? Give us a hollar and we’ll get the conversation rolling.
