The secret "me"

I have always wondered if I am what “I” am. Sometimes I feel I have seen so many “I” s in “me”. Suppose that everything going on in my head in twenty four hours could be accurately recorded on a videotape…My dreams and day time fantasies, conversations with myself and appeals to the gods, the music and the memories that float about and all the loony trivia that strays around in my mind… Suppose all of this material could be played in a theater - with multiple screens and DTS Dolby sound system - A pretty sensational show, I’d guess. MTV, Sci-fi thriller, M&B romances all these combined couldn’t compete with what goes behind the closed door of the secret side of our minds.The operative word here is “secret”.
Public lives are lived out on the job and in the market place, where certain rules , conventions, laws and social customs keep most of us in line.
Private lives are lived out in the presence of our family and friends and neighbors who must be considered and respected, even though the rules and proscriptions here are looser than what’s allowed in public.
But in our secret lives, inside our own heads, almost anything goes…
We alone are answerable for what we think and do when nobody else is around and involved.
Inside this tight boundaries of flesh and bone is a borderless jungle in which clearings exist. In these open spaces, there may be an amusement park, a zoo, a circus, a library, a museum , a theater, or a landscape stranger than Mars.
We refer to ourselves in first person singular - “I” - but inside it’s more like first person plural. Most of the time my inner life seems like a ventriloquist act. A ceaseless dialogue between me and my “dummy”. Oddly enough, the “dummy” is smarter than I am !
It seems as if me and my “dummy” have lots of company. There’s quite a crowd in here with us. A child and its parents, a wise old person, a mechanic, demons, a fool, a scientist, a comedian, a musician, a dancer (?!), an athlete, a magician, a philosopher, a silly romantic girl, a practical woman, and multitudes more…The population of a small town inhabits the landscape of my min! And a town meeting is always in session.
I can fully relate to the occasional movies about multiple personalities. This is not news to me. In the best sense of the word, I run an asylum - a safe refuge - in my mind! And it’s not a problem. As long as I keep the shades down and the doors closed and don’t let anybody loose, all this is well. As long as I am firmly in control of my secret life, the world sees me as sane and functional. Or Am I ? Sometimes it is hard to tell.