"Who Are You? Who. Areyou?"

Two Faces - Bruce Springsteen (mp3)
Who Knows - The Replacements (mp3)

There's this scene early on in The Breakfast Club involving my alter-ego, Brian Jones (Anthony Michael Hall). In it, the geek is contemplating the essay topic assigned by his principal for detention: Who do you think you are? Brian is sitting in his chair, screwing around with a pen and clasping it to his lip and teeth, and asking himself, "Who are you? Who. Areyou?" And he looks over to see the cool street-smart John Bender (Judd Nelson) staring hot needles into his soul. Brian shamefully removes the pen from his mouth, avoids eye contact, and huddles back over his solitary sheet of paper.

In that one throwaway moment of an arguably throwaway movie, Brian's question is asked twice and answered twice. It's first answered by how he's comfortable seeing himself: goofy, internal, capable of entertaining himself with otherwise tedious academic assignments. The second answer comes from the Bender's stare and Brian's reaction: aware of his inferiority, ashamed of his geek-ness, afraid and easily intimidated yet so eager to please in the hopes of just moving one rung up the social ladder. His weaknesses and flaws seem less acceptable under the glare of someone else's biased and calloused stare.

Comic books have always owned my heart because, at their core, most of them serve to remind the reader that a person is usually more than what any single person knows or sees. Oftentimes, the superhero side and their alter-ego have different personalities and different interests, and the public usually has opposite opinions of one versus the other.

Batman (scary, vigilante) and Bruce Wayne (popular corporate rich boy).
Clark Kent (awkward, homely) and Superman (composed, alien).
Hulk (huge, stupid, green) and Bruce Banner (brilliant, scrawny-ass white boy).
Ironically, some of the best villains have the same problem.

I could go on, but I noticed you yawning.

Point being, this is on my mind is because I just saw The Wrestler, which blew me away. In this movie, the two main characters -- played by Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei -- both struggle with the shitty side of being a superhero. Mickey plays both trailer park grocery store clerk Robin Ramzinski and veteran pro wrestler Randy "The Ram" Robinson. Marisa plays both single guarded-heart mother Pam and hot aging stripper Cassidey. Both are constantly struggling to figure out how to balance their dual personalities.

If you watch the movie in the near future -- and if you haven't, you really should -- I beg you to pay attention to just how many times these characters struggle with their names, with who they are and who they want to be. It was heartbreaking.

I'm not a very phobic person. Can't think of many things that scare me unreasonable amounts, that wake me up in the middle of the night, that paralyze me. But here's one: the fear of not being known. And I'm not talking about fame or popularity, not remotely. What I'm talking about is being understood.

Much like my beloved superheroes, whose inspiration for do-gooding stems from some tragic past experience, my fear seems to drive my personality. I'm extroverted; I share embarrassing stories; I write silly confessional blogs; I try -- too hard, often -- to stand out, in the hope that just maybe I can get out there enough to be, ultimately, understood. If I can just get enough of the puzzle out of my head and into the hands of all the people I meet, all the people who know me, just maybe the puzzle can be put together eventually. I'd sure as hell hate to die holding onto too many of the pieces.

And I find myself holding onto puzzle pieces even when I think I'm being honest and revealing. Or, as one friend put it, many of us think we're being open and revealing, but we're just opening and revealing very particular things we want people to see, which makes it all that much easier to hide the parts we want to keep hidden.

Even when we're out there in the open, we cast shadows.

We're all puzzles, and no matter how romanticized your notion of life, you can't just hand over that whole puzzle to just a single person. We're too complex and contradictory and confusing for one person to utterly grasp. Hell, most of us can't even manage to figure ourselves out without relying on those around us who know us and deal with us regularly.

Thank God we don't have to be utterly grasped in order to be utterly loved.

The list of possible songs to go with this topic are legion, and most of them pretty darn good, so I went with a crowd-pleaser and a personal favorite. Both bands should be a part of any collection, so head over to iTunes or Amazon.com!