Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde

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Does that describe you in any way? Does Mr Hyde come out at night?
What brings Hyde out of hiding? Would you prefer to be Dr. Jekyl all the time? Is there any part of Mr. Hyde you admire or even like?
 
My Mr Hyde gets expressed here now and then. But you will get glimpses of Dr Jekyl too.
I am of the opinion, that we need to express our “darker” forces in some way. They need a channel. learning to express anger for example, is healthy. The point is doing it the right way, so others aren’t traumatised.
The suppressed Mr Hyde in us, is a real problem.
 
I got a feeling that someone is going to point out the lack of Catholicism in my perspective here. 🙂
 
You seem like a person that could be an Emperial Stormtrooper as a side job.
 
I’d say that it describes most people. We all have something we struggle with. My “Mr. Hyde” is lazy, spoiled, impatient, highly critical, and a lot more likely to appear when I haven’t slept.

I would like to be Dr. Jekyl all the time if it is a true reflection of myself. If I’m really Mr. Hyde, then let it be apparent to all so that I might be called out of it. I’d rather be like the tax collector who knows he is a sinner and comes to convert and amend his ways, than be like a Pharisee who fools all, even himself. Whatever I am, I want to know about my faults and work on them.

Hmm any part of Mr. Hyde that I like…the closest thing to this is my old humor. I used to be wickedly sarcastic. Unfortunately, sarcastic humor usually comes at a price and I don’t want to speak ill of or to anyone. Now my sarcasm is directed only at myself. I’ll have to express humor in different ways 🙂

I’m not sure that I’m of the opinion that we need to express our darker side. Suppression is no good, it just causes things to fester, but if a positive outlet can be utilized I think that’s best. One of my worse traits is grudge-holding. I don’t pretend to myself that I forgave a transgression if I haven’t, but I try to counteract it by forcing myself to say extra prayers for the person, filling them with good will instead of anger. So far it has worked pretty well, but I’m young and inexperienced so we’ll have to see how it goes in the long run.

I prefer to think of that dark side in the context of the old Cherokee legend. Every person has two wolves inside. One is all light and virtue, the other darkness and vice. The two are locked in deadly combat for sole possession of the person. The one who wins is the one you feed. With the grace of God, I hope to starve the dark wolf in me.
 
Talitha712 said:
I’m not sure that I’m of the opinion that we need to express our darker side.
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I thought statement of mine would cause tremors. 🙂
This is where I envy artists and actors. They get to express a lot of different emotions so their job becomes an outlet.
Maybe I want to be an artist. So why don’t I just let the master of all artists (God) be the artist?
I prefer to be the clay artist than the clay. 🙂
 
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Seagull said:
Only when I drank, oddly enough
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Ah yes my drinking days. Once I discovered that my anxiety disappeared through alcohol, I was hooked. Then the confident Mr Hyde came out to play. He was a bad bad boy.
 
Robert Louis Stevenson. Treasure Island too. Great movie with Jack Parr. Anyways. Passed away suddenly at 44 years of age.
 
(from wiki) Robert Louis Stevenson
More importantly, he had come to reject Christianity and declared himself an atheist.

This is despite his parents being strict Presbyterians. I wonder if his atheism affected this book . (jekyl and hyde)
 
I had serious issues with pride and feelings of superiority that would only really come out when I was around family or close friends but mostly by myself. Finally started to get on top of that just four years ago when I was writing a religion class reflection about I don’t even remember what. Really I give the credit to Jesus Christ and his Church, though.

Let’s see what else… I mean up till I was around 15 years old I was pretty insecure and didn’t want much more than to fit in with my “friends”, so if you count “early teenage kid who liked Nintendo games and Pokemon cards and making paper airplanes instead of shooting games and talking about drugs” as a more positive “Mr. Hyde” then sure, that was me in late elementary and early high school. 😛

I guess I became one whole again when I realized that 1) there were other people like me and 2) I had grown to not care much anyway.

But as for a “darker” side, I’ve generally tried to improve in those areas once recognizing them rather than expressing or suppressing them really.
 
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Arwing said:
I had serious issues with pride and feelings of superiority that would only really come out when I was around family or close friends.
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Interesting comment. it makes me realise that we sometimes lack self-awareness in how our behaviour changes depending on the people we are with.
 
OK been to Sunday morning Mass. And what should the theme be? Letting go of our old selves in order to be transformed. A summary greets me on arrival, projected onto the screen:
“let all the ungodly in you die by itself.”

So what is the implication on this thread?
Let Mr Hyde die. Ignore him and he will slowly shrivel up.
mmm…is that satisfactory? No. I want to go further.
Let’s look at Dr Jekyl. Is he perfect? No. He may have an ego about being a doctor. He may have some Pharisee qualities that tend to haunt “good” men.
So in order for us to be transformed we need to shed our Mr Hyde’s and also our Dr Jekyl’s. Then God can plant new hearts in us, just as was expressed to days reading from Jeremiah.
To reach full spiritual maturity we need to go the extra mile, or in other words, by grace, let God go the extra mile in us.
 
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Having said that, there may be some godly qualities in Mr Hyde that we want to keep.
Mr Hyde was confident, charming perhaps. Are these “bad” traits?
Some of these qualities may be pragmatically useful to us in our life. If we are to take on a leadership role for instance.
I think we can make the mistake of going too far in our faith journey. Making assumptions that “everything” we did in the past was wrong. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe we were doing some things right.
 
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My only enemy - is the demonic -
And I’d be afraid at just how well they know me.

The interesting thing about Mr. Hyde…
I believe the doctor didn’t know what Hyde did…
He had to find out about it in the morning papers…
To me - that smacks of total possession. Scary thought.
 
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