Zzymbrr
[Rough Draft]
I am a composite of many expressions of self, here are some of them:
Vivekanand Pandey Vimal: The conscious expression of myself
Zzymbrr: The positive representation of my unconscious and emotional self who supports my journey. He began as my imaginary friend and was then imprisoned and forgotten by the Old Monologue. It was only when I was able to create the Language that my conscious and unconscious selves started to communicate. At that point, a collaboration formed between Vivekanand Pandey Vimal and Zzymbrr. Zzymbrr, who was imprisoned started to create, from within his prison, the entire Somdeland.
The Old Monolog: The negative representation of my unconscious and emotional self who poisons my existence, who hates me because he wants something more. He imprisoned Zzymbrr, however he is not evil or bad. He also gave birth to the Nastypose which was later consumed, digested and reborn by Zzymbrr in the Revolutionary Metamorphosis.
[Caption] (Part 1 SOMDEland) Over the next few days, I will describe a small portion of my mythological universe which is called SOMDEland. SOMDEland represents my subconscious and its only architect is Zzymbrr, who represents my identity within my subconscious. When I was a child, Zzymbrr was my imaginary friend and we would go on many fun adventures. Looking back, using my adult vocabulary, Zzymbrr was simply a positive internal monologue that allowed me to communicate my subconscious emotions. As I entered into elementary and middle school, Zzymbrr disappeared from my consciousness and as I entered into high school and then undergrad, he was imprisoned and replaced by a poisonous internal monologue that hated me. This negative internal monologue was not evil because it forced me to incubate my soul within myself as cycles of venomous ruminating-thoughts tried to break me apart (pictured here). And from those years of cocooned incubation, I underwent a metamorphosis that led to a revolution that liberated Zzymbrr and started a reBirth that fundamentally transformed me and made me more capable of realizing my destiny. Now Zzymbrr and I (my subconscious and conscious selves) have harmonized and we are exploring and building the architecture of SOMDEland.
[Caption] (Grand Canyon, part 6, Zzymbrr, part 1) This is the Story of Zzymbrr. Beyond poses stiffened by choreography and manicured smiles, sometimes, pictures can capture hidden moments that are completely unseen by our conscious minds and that live deep within the burrows of our unconscious selves. On the left is a picture of breathtaking, beautiful and mysterious rocks that are impregnated with an unbelievable pattern. I consciously took this picture, trying my best to adjust the exposure and frame the picture without having my shadow spill onto the rocks. On the right, only a moment later, is an unplanned, spontaneous picture of my blooming joy as I find even more patterned rocks that blow my mind. Fascinatingly, I did not consciously plan this picture and I even forgot it existed until I went back into my album. When I looked through my travel albums for the last 10 years, I discovered many of these forgotten spontaneous pictures of my reaction Why did I take them? Why was my conscious mind not involved? Why did I forget about them? As I delved into the ocean of my subconscious, I began remembering my relationship with myself.
When I was a child, I had an inner monologue that was superchill and fun and I called him my imaginary friend, Zzymbrr, with whom I would go on adventures. As elementary school engulfed my existence, Zzymbrr began to fade away and by the beginning of high school, my inner monologue was filled with self-hatred and self-disgust. This inner monologue would inject venom into the living soul of my being, slowly suffocating my self-worth and perception of beauty. Perhaps to protect myself from this poisonous inner monologue and to protect myself from the toxic disapproval of the external world, I created my own universe, Somdeland, where I incubated within myself as spiritual hurricanes both within and outside ravaged my identity. When I became a high school teacher, my style of teaching demanded that I open the doors of my soul and so my classroom became Somdeland. I acquired a persona that was entirely different than my inner monologue: it was one of patience and love and the view that every student had tremendous beauty within them. Perhaps because of this persona, I was able to start the process of digesting the poison of my inner monologue in the third year of teaching. Around that time, I began noticing that sometimes my inner monologue would make me laugh by bringing up old memories or making jokes. Sometimes my inner monologue would explore deep ideas that were more interesting than most discussion I had with people. Often my inner monologue would support me through my failures and find beauty and value in my life journey. Perhaps this is why I rarely feel lonely.
Who is this persona? From the mythological viewpoint, perhaps this persona and this companion-like inner monologue is the expression of Zzymbrr, who was imprisoned and forgotten by my subconscious, and who, from within that prison, helped build the architecture of Somdeland. And so, perhaps, the spontaneous pictures in my albums are capturing the momentary escape of Zzymbrr from the dungeon of my subconscious.
It is important to note that Zzymbrr is not an entirely different identity or personality. Instead, Zzymbrr is a style of internal monologue that focuses on providing support, appreciation, novel ideation, catharsis and sustenance during times of failure. In my opinion, most people (including me) don’t have a real relationship with themselves at the same level as they do with friends, families and romantic partners. In my opinion, in the same way we support our children’s dreams, we need to support our own. In the same way that we make a sad friend laugh, we need to make ourselves laugh. In the same way that we see beauty in the life journey of our lovers, we need to find beauty in our own life journeys. Mostly, we need to develop a way to just be there for ourselves and find beauty, meaning, appreciation and value in our own existence.
Symbolic creatures exist between two worlds, Reality and Surreality, between the conscious and subconscious worlds. Like angels, demons and imaginary creatures, there is a reflection of truth of the human identity, blended and dipped into the unfocusable depth of our subconscious. I found this beautiful creature in a temple in India. While it has its own meaning and tradition, to me, it represents Zzymbr (my subconscious identity) as it hangs in the threshold (my doorway) between my universe (my room) and the rest of the world. Because the subconscious world is perhaps a reflection of the conscious world, it/I is upside down.
My identity reflected onto my subconscious is called Zzymbrr who is the primary architect of my mythological universe, SOMDEland. Within my subconscious, there exists nothing except myself. Any trauma, memories, and experiences of the external world are reborn as avatars of myself in my subconscious. The first creature at the top is Zzymbrr and I recently made it after being very motivated by mother's creations (Rita Pandey) (below). Underneath are creatures that my mother made for my birthday last year and they represent the different manifestations of the external world within my subconscious (all who are expressions of Zzymbrr). These creatures are all on my door to the basement which is my universe. Behind this door is the creature from my previous post.