Have you ever heard the term being a chameleon?
It’s when a person changes themselves to fit into whatever situation they find themselves in. The best interpretation is what we all do when we put our A-game on for dates and job interviews. So I would emphasize my positive characteristics based on the situation. An example is the employer who wants someone organized. By Golly, I have that in spades and here’s a story that showcases that trait.
Taken to the extreme, it has a negative connotation in my mind. Maybe because it was my go to coping mechanism for most of my life. I moved a lot and if there are a certain number of beginnings of friendships you get in life, I have rolled that odometer over a few times.
I was thinking about why being a chameleon is ‘bad’ and I came up with two reasons.
The first is feeling like it’s not the ‘real’ you people like. It makes me feel like if anyone really knew me, the ‘real me’, they wouldn’t like me. The reason things are hidden must be because they are bad or negative things. Right? It makes me put on my Mantel of the Introvert*.
The second reason being a chameleon is bad is that I can lose myself. It becomes harder and harder to really know who I am. A person becomes the things they do. I am my habits. So if I routinely stop doing something is it still a part of me? If I start doing something new at what point is it no longer pretending and now just a part of me?
This line of thought has bothered me for years. It pokes me at inconvenient times. This mind set encourages my imposter syndrome and anxiety. Honestly, there has been a lot of this recently in my life.
But there is another way to look at the situation that recently occurred to me. I was talking with Jody Sperling, the reluctant book marketer, and we were talking about how everyone is fully capable of success. That we all have that seed within us to become great. It takes imagination and persistence to make it happen. I’m paraphrasing, but this is how the conversation sat with me.
This is going to sound silly, but by the end of the conversation I wished I was his friend. That the life coaches and successful people he hung out with were my friends. It’s not that I wanted them to make me successful by pulling strings or whatever, but that I wanted my inner chameleon to be encouraged to do the things that he did to be successful. I wanted that voice of doubt to be overwhelmed by bravery. I wanted to jump off that cliff and skydive to the bottom. I wanted to stop having my self-doubt and anxiety dry up the words and send me running for a book to hide in.
So instead of worrying about losing myself, why not encourage the person I want to be to the surface by choosing to be with people who bring out that person? I need to encourage those relationships that inspire me.
What about you? What is one thing you could do to be the person you want to be?
* Sorry dorky moment: Mantel of the Introvert would make a great D&D artifact! +10 on everything when no being is within 30-feet, but -5 on all checks if there is a person within 10-feet. If that person tries to engage in conversation, the wearer must make a 19 Will save or flee away from people to a hiding place. Blanket tents, naps, or books are great hiding places.
The Introvert’s Mantle should have tradeoffs – maybe it is +5 wisdom, +5 intelligence, -4 dexterity (you’re wearing a big ol’ shell after all) and most importantly +5 charisma, so people are drawn to you, which means you need to move away from them in order to get the benefits.
It might also push your alignment as living in your own head leads to detachment from reality and so you have an increasing chance to move along the neutral-lawful-chaos axis as well.
Oh I like that! Does being introverted actually change the alignment or do you just do everything the same, just without actually talking to people? 😉
Maybe someone wearing the Mantle -believes- they do better with less contact with the same race, and maybe heal/recover faster when > 20′ from other beings of the same race? But over time the solution creates a problem, as solutions do, and it’s bad for your long-term alignment or wisdom to be solitary as John Shedd said, “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.”
I don’t know why, but this reminds me of a short story I read years (and years) ago. It was sci-fi, perhaps on another planet, and they had a problem. I want to say it was something like the rats in Australia type problem. Some alien creature was causing an issue and so they brought the ‘cats’ to eat the rats but it caused the next problem. Things escalated and the problems got bigger and bigger the more they tried to interfere. I think they mucked up the whole planet. (I wonder if I even have a chance at finding that story in my office. I really want to re-read it).
I could see that with each use of the Mantel’s powers, things becoming more and more unstable for the poor person. If it was cursed object it could be taken to the extreme. The person ends up living in a cave in the middle of nowhere unable to interact with people at all.
That’s sad! I need to think of a happier ending.
Doesn’t need to be sad – maybe more of a rescue adventure seed, with someone who is lost in introspection and you need to bring them out of their shell/mantle. They think it is helping them to be isolated but it is not. Might even be comical as someone thinks they are better with the Mantle but they need to see that they are in fact just imprisoning themselves by taking it too far.
You are right, it doesn’t have to be sad. I love that there are so many possibilities. A rescue adventure seed appeals to me the most. Thanks for the idea!