Crisis identity

People are afraid to relax. People are afraid to trust. People are afraid of tears. People are afraid of anything out of the ordinary, out of the mundane. They resist, and in their resistance they dig their own grave and they never come to juicy moments, to ecstatic experiences, which are their right they just have to claim them.

A Jewish man living in Los Angeles goes to see a psychiatrist. He introduces himself as Napoleon Bonaparte, even though his file card shows his name to be Hymie Goldberg.

”So what seems to be the problem?” asked the doctor. 

”Well, Doc, actually everything is great. My army is strong, my palace magnificent and my country is prospering. My only problem is Josephine, my wife.”

”Ah,” says the doctor, ”and what is her problem?” 

Throwing his hands up in despair, the man says, ”She is thinking she is Mrs. Goldberg.”

In his tensions, in his anxieties, in his problems, man loses himself in the crowd. 

He becomes someone else. He knows that he is not the role he is playing; he is somebody else. This creates a tremendous psychological split in him. He cannot play the role correctly because he knows it is not his authentic being, and he cannot find his authentic being. He has to play the role because the role gives him his livelihood, his wife, his children, his power, his respectability, everything. He cannot risk it all, so he goes on playing the role of Napoleon Bonaparte. Slowly, slowly he starts believing it himself. He has to believe it, otherwise it will be difficult to play the part.

The best actor is the one who forgets his individuality and becomes one with his acting then his crying is authentic, his love is authentic, then whatever he says is not just the prompted role, it comes from his very heart – it looks almost real.

I have heard Mulla Nasruddin and his wife had gone to see a movie and the hero hugs his beloved, kisses her, and Mulla Nasruddin’s wife says to him, ”You never do this to me.”

Mulla said, ”You don’t understand. This is just a film, not reality, and this is all acting.” 

The wife said, ”Perhaps you don’t know, but the woman who is playing the role of the heroine is the wife of the hero in real life.”

Mulla Nasruddin said, 

”My God, then he is really an actor! Up to now I was thinking he is just an ordinary actor.

 

He is really an actor... his own wife, and he is showing so much love.”