Student 25

Dec 13, 2000

Peace on the Edge of Chaos: A Self Portrait.

My true self, I believe, can be best defined as Peace on the Edge of Chaos. The “peace” refers to my outer self, or the way I portray myself to others. The chaos, on the other hand, is my inner self. This side of me is more conflicting and complicated than the peaceful me. This paper will show what it is I am trying to reflect in my self portrait project. I would like to begin by discussing my inner self, or my “chaos” since it is the most complicated.

I consider my inner self to be chaotic for many reasons. First of all, this is the part of me that does all the thinking. It weighs out all decisions, no matter how small or how large, to the fullest extent. It seems as though it is never at peace. It is also the part of me that is never socially seen. My inner self is very emotional and goes through mood changes quicker than most perceive a pregnant woman to go through them. It gets excited very easily, usually at the site of a friend or one of the many other things that bring me happiness. it also falls in love easily, causing frequent heartache. However, it stays unhappy more than anything else.

I relate this to the many changes I am going through in this point in my life. Some of the changes are do to the transition from high school to college as well as the splitting of the main circle of friends. However, I believe this somewhat depressed state of my personality to the death of my father this past August. Though we never got along, I have since realized how much we were alike and the great respect I had and still have for him. I have chosen both a forest of pine-like trees and an urban city to represent my inner self. I choose these because they are both complicated, full, and chaotic. The crowdedness of the trees and buildings is representative of the crowdedness of the thoughts continuously flowing through my mind. The dark stormy clouds are representative of my emotions. The dark and stormy parts are equivalent to my ever growing sadness and heartache. The lightning is for the electricity of my happy excited emotions, My love for all others, creatures, and things.

The lines used in the drawing of the trees are diagonal, representing active and dynamic, on the go, exciting, dramatic, and emotional. The lines in the buildings are mostly vertical, symbolizing a readings for action while at ease. Both of these lines have been drawn jagged and broken symbolizing chaos, anger, suffering, and on the edge. As a medium I chose a combination of oil pastels and paper chalks. These, when shading in area don’t do a complete covering giving a staccato look to represent nervousness, boredom, and irritation. With the exception of the lightning, the colors I used were all dark to give a down to earth yet gloomy appearance.

My outer self is more peaceful than that of my inner self. With it I try to portray to others a more calm, laid back personality. To others I seem to be the quiet girl, the one who doesn’t really socialize with others often. When they are around me I just smile, and I tend to agree with whatever they are saying, trying not to cause any arguments. It is my whatever, anything goes side. This side really has no depth, it is really an illusional. However it is also this side that is more spontaneous. It doesn’t really think about what to do or the consequences of doing so. It is always bright, peaceful, full of peace and happiness. It never has any worry, pain, fear, upset, or turmoil. I have represented my peaceful inner self with more of a park like setting, to contrast with the chaos of the forest and city. Everything is more spread out, to produce a more calming effect. It seems to be more natural, though natural is what it is farthest from being. There is really no use of line, and the mediums are more of just things I have found around my house. This is representative of the spontaneousness of this side of myself.

All the colors are bright to symbolize the brightness and pseudo-happiness. The is a sun to contrast with the gloominess represented in the inner self part of the project with the dark stormy clouds. The fact that the tree is a real plant is to symbolize the fact that this is the side that other view as the real me.

However, there is a part of me that tends to keep the two sides separate. It is not a separate side itself, just a barrier. Its sets a medium between the to, i guess to keep away from self argument. It is normally where the better judgment comes in as it seem to be a combination of the both, a part of me that steers me in the right direction. It is how i keep my goal in perspective, how I succeed in school, and in a way the true peace within my total self. I have represented it in this project by merely a road.

A road is closely related with direction, and in this project it is the divider between the two sides. The medium for this is spontaneous, being as it was made like in the outer self portion, but it also uses lines drawn with the oil pastels and paper chalks as in the inner self portion. The cars were merely a suggestion and donation of my eight year old cousin.

In comparing my self portrait with the ideas of the Jungain views of the self and romanticism, i found that some of the ideas were agreeing while others were not. According to Jung, the self is one’s goal in life, while for me it just dictates my goals. I also have no goals of being Christ-like. However in his talking of an Extaversion and Introversion, or external and inner world , I have determined that I have each of those. He also talks of a balance between them, which I am working on developing, my “road”. I have also developed the functions of thinking and feeling, while I have yet to begin the functions of sensing and intuiting. As far as Romanticism, from Wackenroder’s quote, I have learned to feel feelings. As far as intensity of feelings, I have felt what I see as despair, powerful and sharp contrasts, as well as wide leaps in my personality. however, as far as individualism, I still need to work on that, especially with my outer self. This is

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