When people hear of someone having a “secret life” or “secret self,” their first impression is probably negative. They might think of someone having an affair or extorting money from his company. They might think of a politician using secret funds to hide and mistress and a baby.
But a secret life—or lives—doesn’t have to mean hiding something illicit. I would go so far as to say that for me, maintaining a secret life is necessary for holding on to my joy and sanity.
One of the most popular novels of all time—Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde—is about a secret life. I teach this book in an Honors literature course at my university, and every student who approaches it already knows the basic story, even though most have never read the original novel. The story is so popular that near 100 films and TV shows have been made of it. The story has been retold in comic books and in other forms. It has been translated into many languages.
Why is the Jekyll and Hyde story so popular? Some see it only as a morality tale about a man’s evil side taking over once that evil has been given free reign. I do think that’s partly what the book is about, but I think its deeper appeal is that it touches readers’ desires for a self that can experience lives other than the mundane, somewhat confining, all-too-familiar one they sometimes feel stuck in.
My wife and I once bought furniture from a salesman who looked utterly bored, almost defeated, until he brightened up at the thought of the sale he was about to make to us. As we chatted, the conversation worked its ways around to the subject of literature, and the salesman revealed that he was a fan of spy novels. He said he spent a good deal of each day in the furniture store secretly pretending that he was doing more than helping suburbanites pick out sofas and mattresses. He lived the life of a spy, working out complex and dangerous plots to save his country.
I know exactly what he means. I not only read novels but also write them. Whenever I’m writing a novel, part of me is almost always in that world. Some days when I come to my university after spending the morning in the world of the book, I have to remind myself who I really am as I walk across campus. I teach here, I tell myself. People will recognize me. I should say hello. Smile. Re-enter this world.
For adults that might sound a little weird, but children are less self-conscious about the secret self. They usually don’t even bother to keep it secret. Many spend little time as themselves. Instead, they’re superheroes, aliens, cops, vampires, werewolves, princesses, teachers, rock stars.
When I was a kid, people in our neighborhood used to rake their leaves into little piles in the street and burn them (something that would never be allowed now). It was a smoky nuisance for most people, but not for me. I rode my bicycle through the mess as a general surveying the battle-scarred town still burning from the recent shelling, my soldiers awaiting me in the distance. We would get our revenge. The tide of battle was about to turn.
Why limit your Self to the one that operates in that everyday world of chores and meetings and traffic and bills? The secret self keeps me sane—and entertained. For me, novels—both reading them and writing them—are the best way to experience those other selves. But movies work too, and TV, and video games for some. Playing sports is how some people enter another self (some can hardly play any sport without hearing an imaginary announcer narrating every amazing move).
Some say, Be Yourself. I say, Be Someone Else Sometimes. It’s more fun.
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For me personally, my secret life involved solving murder mysteries and fighting with French rebels among the barricades (due to many Nancy Drew books and a saturation of Victor Hugo). When that secret life pops up into my “adult” life, I am reminded that often there is so much going on around us that escapes our detection.
Though I have run across the theme of “God as mystery” often in my studies here at Azusa Pacific (especially in my honors courses), I think this blog post reminds us that we as people are also deeply mysterious. The mystery of God sneaks in to our own ordinary flesh. Frederick Buechner said it this way in his book “Telling Secrets” (a great read): ““I not only have my secrets, I am my secrets. And you are yours. Our secrets are human secrets, and our trusting each other enough to share them with each other has much to do with the secret of what it means to be human.” I agree that our secret lives enable us to live richer lives. Playing pretend isn’t always about escaping from ourselves, but rather it sometimes allows us to get to the heart of who we actually are more effectively than our “real lives.”. Thanks for the reminder that our lives themselves are stories worth telling. Also, I will feel less self-conscious as I pretend that I’m a Jedi using the force whenever I walk through automatic-opening doors.
Author
Thank you, Camille. I love your statement, “Playing pretend isn’t always about escaping from ourselves, but rather it sometimes allows us to get to the heart of who we actually are more effectively than our ‘real lives.'” That’s a big part of why I love to write fiction–and read it.
I’m going to take the role of the dissenter here.
I disagree with needing “a secret life.” While distractions from reality (such as TV) are entertaining, they are not needed, and they are definately not required to stay sane.
First, Soloman tried this. In Ecclesiastes 5:7, he says “For in many dreams and in many words there is emptiness. Rather, fear God.” It didn’t give Life, and he concluded that he didn’t need it.
Second, the Self explained in the post is one that goes through monotonous tasks like “chores, meetings and traffic and bills.” Now, I understand there is no outward stimulation through these things. They are inherently boring situations. However, allowing the Self to be bored under such circumstances is the problem. We are not subject to outward stimulation. We have 2 things going for us: (1) we have education – we can think about stuff, (2) and much, much more helpful, Christians have Christ in them. Christ is the source of Life (capital on purpose). He provides fulfillment during boring tasks. This goes for kids as well.
Third, Socrates said “Know thyself.” If we are so boring that we need to escape reality, then I suggest we don’t know ourselves well enough. I find it hard to believe that humans with all their thinking-abilities are that boring to be around. Having gone through a truamatic experience last semester that requied me to look at myself, I can attest to this statement. I didn’t know myself very well; I thought I did, but then I found I didn’t. Why do I get bored doing paperwork? Is my internal livings that dead?
Regarding sanity…I cannot relate. I go more insane when I delve too deeply into imagination. When I become completely addicted to a secret self or imaginary distractions, I can’t stop thinking about them. The secret life became more important than the real life. I looked forward to the secret life rather than the real life.
Yes, I do believe we need to be someone else sometimes. We are taught rules as children, and guidelines, hopefully based on biblical standards. But both children and adults need to supplement that straight learning with imagination.
Pretending to be a superhero, for example, teaches the value of looking out for the welfare of others beyond yourself. As an adult, imagining yourself in the shoes of your story’s hero might give you ways to solve problems in your own life.
That’s one of the main reasons I write fiction–to better understand the world around me (and therefore myself).
My daughter will occasionally “catch” a glimpse of my other life as I frequently am working out fictional scenes in my head as I drive. Hannah will tap me and say, “Other people can see you, you know.” And I’ll realize I’ve been working out dialog in my head complete with hand gestures and facial expressions. Ooops. She finds it amusing.
When I was a little girl, I frequently found an excuse to stay after school and take the “late bus” home because it took a winding route that could last up to two hours. For two hour, I could live in my head, creating an entirely different world. I haven’t changed much since then.
Author
Lori, I know exactly what you mean. I have occasionally embarrassed myself by blurting out a line of dialogue when I am out in public. It’s sometimes hard to turn off the fictional world.
Thank you for permission to retain that childlike wonder of imagination and pretend. As children, it’s how we decide who/what we want to be when we grow up. As adults, it’s maybe a chance to explore, just for a while, all the possibilities we didn’t get to fulfill because we made a different choice.
Great post!
Thanks for a genuinely thoughtful post that provoked thoughtful replies. But the secret world is not necessarily escape from reality. It is a prerequisite to creating a new reality, or why else did God give us imagination? In each command I had in the Army, I visualized what that command should become, along with the means of getting it there. Though we never reached that final goal, we always made good progress toward it. The secret world of imagination and vision is essential, for “Where there is no vision, the people perish….”
Isn’t it funny that we freely display the products of our secret lives, our novels?
I love your example of the furniture salesman, making his daily life more interesting by fantasizing about a secret spy identity (did you recommend Tim Power’s Declare to him?!). I think of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty as another, more light-hearted examination of the secret life.
Obviously, it can be done in a way destructive way but that’s also part of the challenge of what it is to be human: we must learn balance and none of us learned to ride a bicycle without a tumble or two!
Thanks for another great blog post–
Author
Lynn, I hadn’t thought about Walter Mitty when I wrote this post, but I do think that furniture salesman is kind of a Walter Mitty character. I’m thinking of James Thurber’s short story version of Mitty rather than the film, which I’m not too familiar with. In the story, Walter Mitty used the secret life in part to escape from his nagging wife and in part to escape from the boredom of his mundane existence. Those aren’t the only reasons why a secret life is useful, but it made life bearable for Mitty, and it made for a very funny story.