COLUMN: Who's there in my head?

From Daniel Septimus', "I Know My Last Name is Septimus," Fall '00 From Daniel Septimus', "I Know My Last Name is Septimus," Fall '00After this year's holiday movie season, everyone on campus should be asking one unavoidable question. It has nothing to do with vacation, schoolwork or sex. Nor does it have anything to do with the arrival of the new year, century or millennium. Why would anyone eat white meat when they could have dark meat? Nope, that's not the question either. So what is this question that should have the campus buzzing? For those of you out of the loop, this categorical interrogative arises after a viewing of Spike Jonze's brilliant movie, Being John Malkovich (something you all should have seen during that lengthy vacation). In Malkovich, John Cusack plays an underemployed puppeteer, Craig Schwartz, who uses his skillful hands to manage the filing cabinets at LesterCorp. One day, Schwartz discovers a small doorway hidden behind one of his cabinets that is really a portal leading into actor John Malkovich's brain. Anyone who crawls through this portal gets to play a part in Malkovich's consciousness. Schwartz and his beautiful co-worker Maxine (Catherine Keener) set up a booming business which allows anyone to spend 15 minutes in the portal for only $200. (Eat that Whartonites!) Charlie Kaufman's screenplay does a phenomenal job staving off pretension, but there's something about spending a Third World country's GNP on popcorn and soda that makes me pedantic. I couldn't help thinking about the very real identity issues raised by the film. What makes me who I am? Can my personality, GPA and sexual preference be attributed to the random people who have crawled through my portal? And most importantly, if John Malkovich's portal is behind a filing cabinet, where the hell is mine? In reality, there are portals which lead to my brain, though they aren't found behind filing cabinets. My consciousness is regularly penetrated by other people. How often do we do things or think about things totally independently? The answer is very simple: never. Our consciousnesses are collages of events and influences which include other people. What makes each of us unique is not what we are stripped of outside influences, but rather, the particular pastiche of people who have infiltrated our minds. As Malkovich showed, other people can determine our dinner plans, sexual preference and personal beliefs. (Liking white meat is perhaps the only totally inexplicable character trait.) Fortunately, we do have some control over which people we allow into our brains. However, it seems to me that the illusion of independence -- the assumption that we can make choices without outside influence -- often stops us from willingly allowing others into our portals. Self-fulfillment and self-actualization are important values in our culture, but this does not mean that we can be self-sufficient. We create our identities in dialogue with others. That's the fact. Too often, the notion of self-fulfillment becomes an excuse to ignore important relationships and the importance of community. In addition, the illusion of independence contributes to our ignorance of difference. When John Malkovich, playing himself, entered his own portal, it was a complete disaster. Everywhere he looked he saw people with his own face. The only word he could hear was "Malkovich," the only sentence, "Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich." If the only people we allow into our portals dress, talk and act the same way that we do, our minds will have a skewed vision of "the other" -- and our impression of reality will be static. Where is the portal to my brain and who has been crawling into it? This is an important question. We cannot choose whether to create our own consciousness or let others do it for us. "The other" is part of us and influences us; this is unavoidable. Many members of the freshman class are now in the process of making important social decisions. Joining a social group is about more than just hanging out. Those rushing sororities and fraternities should realize that not only do we hang out with the people we live with, drink with and play beer pong with, we become them. To chose your fraternity is to choose not only your friends, but yourself. Join social groups -- fraternities, sororities, clubs -- and make your choices with even more care than your choice of classes. Try and embrace difference; seek fellowship with those who dress different, look different and think different. In order to see difference and transcend ourselves, we must invite the other to take a ride in our portal. Waive the $200 fee, sit back and watch yourself and your world be transformed.