This time was always coming, but now it has finally arrived.
In my incantations and prayers I have stated many times that the person I perform as when I awaken is different from the creator behind him. Yet in these prayers I referred to them both in the same first-person. Over a year ago I tried to differentiate the two with different spellings and even pronouns: “I” for my secondself persona, and “Ii” for my firstself. The only thing that stuck was the triself model — firstself, secondself, and thirdself. As good as triself is for explaining the layers of my existence, it is clumsy for self-reference.
I have also referred to my second place persona by my given first name. But I am reluctant to use that name… my reasons are not entirely known to me, even now. Perhaps some misplaced desire for ambiguity in my writings. Or perhaps the word is too powerful, too personal. I feel a deep attachment to that name, and when I say it I conjure third-person visualizations of that person in my head. I see that person as I might see him on the road if I walked by him. I see how his personal shortcomings have shaped his face and body. No, I can’t use that name because it means too much to me. I am too associated with that name.
What remains besides the name? A dispassionate description that describes who he is without triggering familiarity. I will call this person what he is: he is the Actor. He is a secondself layer of thoughts, feelings, desires, and sensations, and a thirdself projection.
I am Firstself, and I am behind the Actor. I can feel Myself here, suffocated behind the Actor. The Actor is a great, heavy prison bolted to my being. Now as I say it, I feel it so clearly. The Actor is an accretion of layers upon firstself Me. I – Firstself – always shine, always emit, always project. But my projection must travel through the Actor, who distorts, twists, and extrudes into my thirdself. I am “behind” my secondself Actor.
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