Week 5: The Trickster, Jungian Archetypes Part 1
Continuing down the rabbit hole, the Jungian personality archetype of the trickster really stuck out for me. Although I'd like to say I have a large range of character and I can take on any role, the trickster has always been a favorite of mine.
Looking back again to my elementary school years. There was an ever changing hierarchy at recess. I grew up on Leprechaun Lane, and my high school colors were green and gold. The founders of Kearns were pretty obsessed with treasure I guess. Maybe I can tie that into my personality somehow.
I was never the fastest kid, or the biggest, or the first in line alphabetically when it was time to line up for lunch. I knew I never would be, but what I really aimed for was to be the kid with the most charm, as in Lucky Charms, my unofficial sponsor for today's memory. See it does tie in! BUT, there's a problem with charm it can quickly becomes annoying, and distracting, and even menacing.
I remember the closest I ever came to death was right after a teacher, hot off recess duty, snapped and yelled at my whole 5th grade for being garbage human beings. I remember thinking, hey we aren't garbage, we just got a little 10 years oldie. I wasn't going to just take his criticism, so I waited for him to turn around and get a good 45 feet away, and then I totally let him have it, “Alllllrighty then!” I yelled and the laughter was galvanizing. I was born for this one moment in time, I basked in it for nearly a full second until he turned around, just like you see bulls do in the movies...or at rodeos I guess, anyway 10 years of my life started rolling the opening credits as he quietly screamed, “Who... Said...That?”
What happened next convinced me that there was indeed a God and for some reason on that day he cursed the rest of the 5th graders to silence because not one snitch spoke up that day. Not one! I will never that time my entire 5th grade class spared my life.
I became a legend in my own mind that day. I felt like the only reason I was spared by grace was so that I could live on as a class clown, to speak truth to power, as long as power had their backs turned, and I had my peers supporting me.
I remember thinking though, why not speak up at a more appropriate time, when it wouldn't have been so embarrassing to that man, here his character wasn't challenged in front of everyone?
I believe that if I hadn't spoken out in that electrically charged moment, when the stakes were all laid out on the table, what effect would it have had, if any. That would mean going at the teacher through the proper channels established by grown ups in an educational system that I had no part in constructing. Why should I play by their rules, besides not wanting to die?
Well this was a real moment for me, I was charged up and ready to call out this man's moment of weakness because I felt like he had gone too far, and really made some of these kids feel like they were seen as lesser humans to a man who held a lot of influence in these kids minds. I saw it on their faces in ways he couldn't, he wasn't one of us. My tiny comedic uprising, in my own delusional mind, was a way for me to mitigate some of the damage he was causing without trying to strip him completely of his position. School was better off being a playful place, not a rigid institution that squelched an attitude of play and exploration.
Taking on the role of trickster has had its lows, of course. I've been punched in the mouth for teasing a friend about his clothes on the wrong morning, another friend stopped playing Risk with me because I called him a treasonous coward on a bad night. It was sometimes hard to read the room and sometimes just a gamble gone the wrong way, but I have had to learn the hard way that the trickster's mask should be warn with caution and heightened room reading capabilities. I'm still learning this tool. In the realm of writing... how does one read the room? Turns out very slowly. This is why I fell in love with the instant feedback of stand-up comedy. I discovered almost instantly that an unrefined trickster is very much not funny to a room full of strangers. I have spent a lot of time working on my trickster, to the point that I married one. She is a much more refined trickster, one who has pushed me out of my comfort zone and into a more fulfilling life. And she even loves Ace Ventura more than I do!
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