Chapter Two — Double Vision

“The Toltecs believe that every human is an artist, and the art we create is our lives.” — Don Miguel Ruiz

… Duality is expressed everywhere in nature, from the pairing of genes, to the male and female of most species, to the two halves of the human brain. We often talk of being of two minds; we talk romantically of finding our better half, our soul mate.

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“Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has ever known” — Oscar Wilde, In Art

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This duality also is operating at a subconscious level in the human psyche. Many people today seem to have a kind of scientifically unrecognized “schizophrenia”1 ; consisting of two distinct selves: an adult self and an inner child. These two persona develop as a kind of coping mechanism during the process of attaining maturity in this society.

The child is the more natural. original self; it is the self that started with the birth of the individual. For a time during childhood it is the only person. Its response to the world is pure and direct in its approach. This child persona, alternately called the “inner child,” is where creativity resides. This self never grows up or dies; it exists in a kind of timeless state. The child self may be further divided into two distinct personalities, reflecting the childlike and the childish.

The adult is the self that develops as a necessary result of the pressures of socialization. In this person is found two sides as well: the rational and the irrational. The adult person that we develop is usually modeled upon the adults that we had around us growing up. In a real sense the parent person that develops inside us replaces the parent outside at some point in our lives — usually long before the death of our parents.

Just as our parents are our natural guardians, so the original purpose of the adult person is that of guardian as well. This self grows as a kind of shield — imagine a shell around an inner nut — to protect and nurture the natural self, or inner child.

It is in the child self that all true creativity originates, not in the adult. The adult self merely provides a safe place and a structure for creative expression. The child provides inspiration and the adult makes manifestation possible.

— excerpt from the book Parallel Mind by Aliyah Marr
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copyright 2007 Aliyah Marr
http://www.aliyahmarr.com