Anastasiia Polishchuk↓

About the work

XVI

Don’t be afraid, your majesty, the blood has long since drained away into the earth and grapes have grown on the spot.

Не бойтесь, королева, кровь давно ушла в землю. И там, где она пролилась, уже давно растут виноградные гроздья. [1]

1. BULGAKOV, Mikhail: The Master and Margarita

The personality is collected piece by piece.
The personality-to-be, already as a small child, observes others – and mimics their favorite features, movements, facial expressions, reactions.
A child is always born authentic, free, with certain limits of its own. It is only over time that it tries to deconstruct this – either consciously or unconsciously.
An adult laughs – and a child begins to laugh along, at first affectedly, in an effort to mirror the adult, but it later learns to laugh spontaneously.
In puberty, one tries to fit into a subculture – to be different, but to simultaneously seek those who are like him or her.
At times, we adopt the features of popular celebrities – the way they glance, smile, move, and dress.
Occasionally, we like the music heard on the radio and in MTV charts.
And sometimes we crave love affairs we have watched in series and drama movies.
We want the same green lawn as that of our neighbor.
We get tattooed out of rebellion and go to church out of humility.

You are the average of the five people you are seeing.
You are the average of the five songs you sing.
Of the five memes you have liked.
Of the five people you’re in love with.

You in fact are not average, but you want to be.

Our journey as an adult – going back to our authentic self. Throwing away what we have appropriated extra, out of synthetic desire, out of the desire to fit in, out of the need to be valued (the highest, of course).

***

What are our desires? Parents / those around us / friends / partners think they know better what is best for us - who we should become, how to behave, who to marry and when, how to dress, and when it is appropriate to smile. In order not to be ourselves.

An attempt to copy the existing strategies of existence in order to be part of a social whole for fear of not being accepted, of the genetic presuppositions of need in socialization.
Masking one’s personality is an act of self-destruction – self-harming. What can make us unhappy can consist of misleading ideas about how we must live.
It is important to stop oneself in the chase for a blanket recognition of one’s plastic personality formed out of fear of not fitting in a certain structure, but to find oneself and accept oneself. (When you’re in a hurry and jump on someone else’s tram.)

It is obvious that even our initial, default setting to which we return can be synthetic – made of everything we have collected through adolescence and forming an inseparable part of our Self. Because you can’t be inspired by what doesn’t exist.
The difference between what is ours and what is not is just what makes us happy in our own existence.

***

It often happens that in order to realize that one has destructive programs inside, a big, often unpleasant, abrupt change must come.
A change when one remains with oneself – with one’s fears, shadows, prejudices.
And the fight begins, followed by a coup.
The 16th Major Arcana card in Tarot is the Tower. It is the card of an abrupt change. When everything that has been built for many years is destroyed and overturned in a single uncontrollable moment. And it is destroyed because it was based on the wrong foundation.

Breakthrough, collapse of ego, sudden and radical changes that lead to liberation, termination of old and destructive programs, collapse of illusions, awareness of one’s own prison (closing into a seeming safety), revolution, situation beyond control, but also collapse, accident, crash, breakup, shock, lightning out of the blue… [2]

2. http://www.tarotovaskola.cz/vyznam-tarotove-karty-vez/.

The Tower is a symbol of the universal principle of healing, of replacing the old with the new, and the symbol of renewal. … The Tower is a symbol of transformation and awakening, which is necessary to demolish everything in us that is artificial or false or conditions its existence. [3]

3. https://probud.se/tarot1/crowleyho-tarot/velka-arkana/996-crowleyho-tarot-16-v.

***

The world is a changeable puzzle. We assemble, we disassemble.
To build a solid, new tower on new foundations, from dust, after the deconstruction.
With the right views of the world. With a complete understanding of the inner world.
The main thing is that this time the foundations are solid.

Building an artificial personality

Tower

Collapse of an artificial personality
{An abrupt change
Turning the world around
Destroying everything old that seemed solid
Emptying space for something new
The collapse of illusions
The breakdown of the ego
Transformation
Destroying all ideas about oneself and those around and rebuilding everything from the scratch
Introspection
Self-identification
The birth of the new Self}