Personality
“Man as personality, not by nature but by Spirit.”~Nicolas Berdyaev
“Personality is a breakthrough, a breaking in on this world; it is the introduction of something new.”~Nicolas Berdyaev
We were eating breakfast around the kitchen island. Our guest arrived the night before on his way home to New Mexico. It was convenient for him to stop and set up his laptop, get a few hours of coding done for his employer, and then stay and get a good night's sleep before resuming the journey home.
We traveled into the usual monologue of angst about his children being off to college, not having time for their father, and hardly a phone call anymore. The abuse was in the narrative and always is! Our legacy as a civilization is the abuse and sacrifice of our children in one way or another. In this case, the children were raised by a narcissistic mother, a very damaged woman from an ancestry of damaged, controlling narcissistic women. They were most likely abused as a child by their father, significant male family member, or mother.
After three failed marriages, this man was beside himself. Also raised by a narcissistic mother, he has no clue who he is. His life has been a series of manipulations to meet the supply and demands of greedy, selfish, and damaged women, leaving him shamed and broken. There is no room for a functional relationship in this world he has lived in all his life. His current struggle and confusion are expressed as what to do with his life now that his sons are going on with their lives.
His story has been told several times now. The story of how he would break from the tedious job and acquire the freedom to do what he wanted to do, and in the asking him just what it is he wants to do with his life, to get a vague answer littered with an abstract idea of what that might look like. His ramblings were an ego’s attempt to appear rational and saved from the pain and disappointment that fatherhood turned out to be. The narcissists took their supply and left a shell of a man. It's enough to make a 45-year-old man want to drink. The children's mother had taken control of the family from the beginning. Generally, they marry for the sole reason of having a sire for their children, and as soon as they are birthed, they have no use for the man they married. And it didn’t take long before the wife was hatching a plan to take the offspring off to a distant city to meet up with another man and start a new life. Everything was executed underhanded, and the sperm donor was given the task of going to war so he could at least have some access to his children.
If this wasn’t enough, this man was raised in a home dominated by a damaged, narcissist mother. And to add to the drama, he was the “golden child” of three children in the house and the only male child. Imagine the dissonance of being told you were the special child and eventually marrying a woman that praised you for being the special one. You gladly agreed to tie the knot with her, only to discover she meant it long enough to leave your genetic deposit for her beloved conceptions and then run you off.
There is much to deconstruct here, let alone discussing the “golden child” challenge. Truth tellers fare the same disappointment and despair from damaged, broken women playing the game. They are all put together, longing to walk the aisle and seduce you to honor and obey.
After a quiet time on our part, I injected a previous conversation about the power of writing and journaling to get to the bottom of his personality. Jordan Peterson speaks to the power of “self-authoring.” Of course, the original discourse hadn’t been taken seriously. There hadn’t been any journaling of any kind taking place. No engagement. The story ended with the realization that this man hadn’t been able to get very far yet, with his resolving the life he has lived.
Man is a lost being who suffers from the fall and deserves to get the better of it. If it were not for man's ability, with God's help, he would be like other things, the objects of the world, and there would be nothing particularly unique about him. “Personality in man is evidence of this; the world is not self-sufficient in that it can be overcome and surmounted. Personality is like nothing else in the world, incomparable to anything else, and nothing can be placed on a level with it.”~Berdyaev
We are individually unique creatures that are created with unique personalities if we seek it out and live in it. Thus the reason for a Messiah. Remember His words in the temple at the beginning of his ministry. He came to set the captives free. He came for this man that hasn’t yet discovered the fulfilling life Yeshua promised. It will take him time to get there, and he can. Again, he has to ask for it. We all must ask for it, and yes, Yahweh will deliver. He will orchestrate what needs to happen so you can break out, be a free man, and live out your personality.
Personality is God's gift to you, says Berdyav. He tells us that “personality is self-constructive, is the ideal of a man, is your soul.”
“Personality is you, potentially the universal but quite certainly a distinct, unrepeatable, irreplaceable being with a unique form.”~Nicolas Berdyaev
“The superficial ego of a man which is much socialized, rationalized and civilized is not the personality in a man.” The man in the story has been molded by events and persons manipulating him for their selfish pleasure, their “supply.” What he finds left of himself is an ego fighting to have relevance, thinking he is still the special child, the golden child, but now a man, confused and alone, broken and afraid.
I intend to assist him, challenge him to ask, seek and knock on the door of the throne of He who created him in His image and likeness. To learn to live out of the consciousness of his soul, his personality. Live a free man, delivered by his Messiah, that came to free the captives.
Berdyaev, Nicolas, Slavery and Freedom, First Edition, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1944
