Illustration © Kaitlynn Copithorne
David Bowie wore many guises in his life. Among the most iconic: Ziggy Stardust, the strange alien from space; Aladdin Sane with the iconic lightning strike; in his last years, the Blind Prophet. Throughout his life he dressed up, took on new looks and new identities. But beneath the surface, who is Bowie really? And it’s a question that begets another question: who are we really?
As children, we like dressing up. In our adolescence, we try on different hats. As adults, too, when it’s socially acceptable. But there comes a point in life when we feel we ought to have it figured out. We should know ourselves. And so we become writers, doctors, activists, witches, lawyers, non-conformists, musicians, coffee connoisseurs, white collar workers, jet-setters, politicians, photographers, bird watchers… The list goes on.
These are all costumes, labels, a list of things we identify with. We assume the roles. We learn the script and embody the archetype with its accompanying set of symbols. Who are we really? Are we the jobs we do, the artists we like, the places we’ve lived in, the people who brought us into the world? Or are we missing something deeper, a through-line, a centre, a true self we need to carve out, rescue from some inner labyrinth and bring to the forefront?
Our social media timelines convey an unnerving insecurity with who we are. Every other post is a reminder to others and ourselves of our eclectic interests, our talents, our virtues, our brand. Shakespeare wrote that “all the world’s a stage,” and it’s true. There’s a decisively performative aspect to the way we live.
Sometimes, alone, I feel like a ghost. Unmasked, I walk through the world as if I’m embodying impressions. I channel the wind, the sadness the rain brings, the spring gloom. My identity is composed of memories, of spirits of places, of things I tell myself, and of things others tell me. I know it’s all in flux. The masks are shifting. We are one person with family, another with friends. Looking back at old diaries, I know I’m not the same person now that I was 10 years ago—though something remains.
The quest to find ourselves vs create ourselves
In times of crisis, we set out to find ourselves. Perhaps we will find whatever it is that constitutes us out there in the Himalayas, or somewhere out west. Perhaps we’ll find ourselves in another person who teaches us to see, or in the sun that sets over the Pacific ocean. Often we’ll gain access to another part of ourselves through a story that inspires us.
But this quest to “find yourself” is somewhat self-defeating when the more precise goal ought to be “to create yourself,” as Bob Dylan and many others like him have put it. The young Robert Zimmerman was inspired by the beatnik poets, Herman Melville, country music, and Buddy Holly; from these and other ingredients he created someone new: Bob Dylan.
David Bowie was also skilled in the art of self-invention. In a 2002 interview, he said that, earlier on, what he’d really wanted to do was make musicals. Instead he became a rock star, but he employed similar theatrics in creating his various personae; from the otherworldly alien, Ziggy Stardust, to the Blind Prophet, each came with its own instantly recognisable mythology, costume and set of symbols.
Where do these personae come from?
And what are they, ontologically speaking? Here is a place we still have room to imagine.
Bob Dylan set out to create himself from pre-existing archetypes and inspirations. I was fascinated by something he said during his Nobel Prize acceptance speech. Tracing the history of his musical and literary influence, he started with Buddy Holly: “He was the archetype. Everything I wasn’t and wanted to be.” Dylan recalled seeing Buddy Holly live and the intense feeling of looking at him. “Then, out of the blue, the most uncanny thing happened. He looked me right straight dead in the eye, and he transmitted something. Something I didn’t know what. And it gave me the chills.”
This uncanny sense of transmitting something was commonplace in ancient times. In ancient Greece, our behaviours, personalities, and talents were externalised. As poets often invoked a muse for creativity, a soldier, or lost traveller, such as Odysseus, might have invoked other entities for courage or strength. In medieval Europe, a strange whim might have been put down to demonic possession, excitement to high-spiritedness. The full moon might have induced lunacy.
In Western culture today, we have moved from externalising the changeable parts of who we are to internalising them. We tell ourselves to be courageous, to have confidence, to be kind to ourselves. Thoughts no longer possess us. We change our minds. The language we use has changed. We still speak, even in jest, of “channelling” Shirley Jackson, or David Bowie, or anyone who inspires us. Of “tuning in to” people—of not being “on someone’s wave length.”
But, again, are we these thoughts that grip us? Or are we something else? To answer this we may need to dig a little deeper. There are various schools of thought concerning what constitutes self.
What is self?
In Jungian psychology, the self is the unification of the conscious and unconscious minds. The ego represents the conscious mind. Our personae are part of the ego. A persona, or our personality, is a mask we wear, a social face. A more resilient ego is one that is flexible and doesn’t identify too rigidly with one label. Many people who feel lost or struggle from a lack of self-esteem benefit from doing deep inner work with archetypes, projections of human needs, or deities. Such work enables us to tap into parts of ourselves we don’t know exist, conjuring up new ways of being. In turn this adaptability makes us more resilient. We have seen the problems of a rigid ego during lockdown. There are people whose mental health and happiness relies on certain structures: a nine-to-five job, or a brunch date with friends on Saturdays. The disintegration of normality has likely contributed to growing global anxiety.
Perhaps it works the other way, too: in a capitalist matrix, the self internalises and identifies with values of the state. The self too, is homogenised then. This homogenisation of the self can cause great anxiety for the more flexible ego, as it is conscious that this “hyper-normal” self is just one mask among many others, which are forcibly repressed (including, when we grow up, the playful, imaginative aspects of our being). When I speak about a hyper-normal self, I’m talking about a sense of self that is so normal, it only exists within the context of a fake world, like that depicted in Adam Curtis’ documentary HyperNormalisation.
Carl Jung’s approach thus suggests that the ego and the conscious mind are changeable. But are we our egos? If so, does this mean our very core is changeable? The ultimate spiritual quest of many religious practices is to transcend the ego, to find an unchangeable core, a centre, a through-line, something shared and universal. In Buddhism and in many occult belief systems there is often this goal to “forget oneself,” which doesn’t demand followers to suffer an identity crisis, but to forget the ego and get closer to something else. There’s a comparable belief in many, if not most, religions. For instance, in his book Living Buddha, Living Christ, the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh compares the surrendering to Christ to the Buddhist idea of finding this inner peace.
The true self
The true self, it is believed by many, is something deeper, beyond the costumes we wear and names we go by. In ritual magic, practitioners are often naked or all robed. The idea is that when we strip back our constructed personae, we realise we are all the same thing.
We ought not forget that much concerning the nature of consciousness has come to us from the Indian sub-continent. In Hinduism, the ego is a trapping of the physical world. The body is often likened to a flesh tomb, and the ego is like the glass that contains our true self and shapes it. The true self—the atman—is a silent, conscious witness. It exists within every creature at its core. This is why in modern mindfulness practices, derived from these Eastern roots, it is often repeated that “we are not our thoughts.” Adherents are told to watch thoughts as one might watch rain clouds. They are passing and in flux, but behind our thoughts there is a self. It’s in re-connecting with this inner self, often described as a true self or higher consciousness, that we might find union.
The general consensus is that, no, we are not our egos. This doesn’t mean they aren’t important. They are tools we need to live in this world and to play our part. To be without personae or with a rigid persona is self-limiting. In Freemasonry, and in more esoteric temples, such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and the Ordo Templi Orientis, many of the rituals entail performance. Practitioners slip into roles, embody entities, but only for the duration of the ritual. On the next meet up they will take on new names and faces. Practitioners become increasingly aware that their personae are constantly changing, but something remains.
Behind the masks: who is the real David Bowie?
Who then is the real David Bowie? The one behind the imagery, the masks, the costumes? What is this “something” that remains? There may be an answer in ‘Quicksand’, his most metaphysical song. Bowie is well-versed in the teachings of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and—as he puts it in ‘Quicksand’—“Crowley’s imagery”. In this song, he is standing at the precipice of self-annihilation. Bowie acknowledges the limits of human logic, if not language: "I’m tethered to the logic of Homo Sapien.” His concluding words are: “Don't believe in yourself, don't deceive with belief / knowledge comes with death's release.”
Such thoughts can be vertiginous. What grip have we on reality if not in identifying with our personae—the masks we wear? These bolster our egos, maintain the very thing we identify as “I”. According to Jung, personae are an integral part of our reality. The changing nature of our masks does not make them less authentic; they are how we cope in a difficult world.
Personae can have the dramatic distinctiveness of Bowie’s personae, or the differences can be more subtle. We are often different people in different contexts. Who are we in front of our colleagues, our parents, one group of friends, another group of friends? Who were we when we were 13? Are we the same person now? The enlightened person whose consciousness and unconsciousness have found union might say yes. Most of us are not so unwavering.
Thinking about personae, another artist comes to mind: the photographer Cindy Sherman. In a series of self-portraits, Sherman wears costumes and adopts personae that render her unrecognisable. She morphs into hundreds of different people. But behind the photographs, where is Sherman? Does she identify with one guise more than another? Which mask is closest to her own? Undoubtedly, off the canvas Sherman is probably different people at different times in her life and in different contexts. But her ego, like our own egos, might recognise itself more in some of her masks than others.
Looking at Sherman’s transformations, like Bowie’s, reminds us that we can wear new masks when our old ones no longer serve us. When we ask who someone really is behind their masks, we’re also asking who we are.
The limits of self-invention
Whether we’re deeply into mysticism, ritual magic, occultism, or just living life, all of us take on personae. And not only is it a coping mechanism for living, but, like fancy dress, having personae at our disposal makes life all the richer and more enjoyable. The more flexible our ego, the more open we are to adopting new personae, and the more it seems life has in store for us. It is freeing to set about creating oneself rather than finding oneself.
Sadly, it must be said, we don’t always have a say in who we can become: we are born into a body and a place in society. Experiences shape us. Family and society-at-large tell us who we are. Whether by the politicisation of our skin colour, or accent, or name, from the moment we are born, much of our personae are already drawn out for us. We must speak out against all forms of discrimination, including racism, homophobia, transphobia, classism, and sexism. Everyone should have the freedom to be who they want to be, to define themselves on their own terms.
But within the confines of what is possible, the more privileged among us can have a say in who we become. We can delve deep into the shadow of our psyche or look outward to nature and summon those personal entities which best serve us and reject those that don’t.
Choosing our other faces
Besides David Bowie's musical legacy, I will remember him for his ability and conscious efforts to reinvent himself. “Be true to yourself” is often a measure of control. Authenticity is to some extent artificial, and we can often choose a different way to be and to serve. The ideal is one that not only improves our lot, but that of those around us. Our personae might help us fight discrimination of all varieties, discrimination that prevents others from having this freedom to self-invent. We might campaign for a better world. Find a cure to a deadly virus. Befriend someone who is lonely. Our personae might give us the courage to write stories or make music which changes people’s minds and makes us feel alive again and give us a reason to carry on through the darkness. That is how a shy working-class boy called David Jones went on to become the musical legend that is David Bowie, and all his other faces.