Inner Child

Self Portrait Project

By Auddie Alepra

Portrait

Flash Fiction- Inner Child

Remember when we were innocent little kids, running around the neighborhood, chasing after the ice cream truck?

Remember blowing those glorious bubbles that reflected every inch of the world that we had no idea what it had in store for us?

Remember the sound of laughter as we flew down the biggest hill on our bikes?

Remember when it didn’t matter what day of the week it was because everyday was the best day?

Remember splashing in the pool, sliding in the mud, and dancing in the rain?

Remember when the hardest decision we had to make was whether we wanted a grape or cherry popsicle?

I remember those days.  Those were the good ol’ days.

As we got older, things seemed to change.

Sometimes it’s not always ice cream and laughter.

Sometimes it’s not the best day.

Sometimes there are harder decisions than the flavor of popsicle.

Sometimes we don’t feel like dancing in the rain.

These are the times that we must take a deeper look into ourselves to find that inner child that still lives inside us, but is hidden.

We must allow our inner child even the slightest glimpse into the real world.

Our inner child sees things we look past.

Our inner child finds the sparks of color in the dark, the one shining star on a cloudy night, the glisten of sun amongst the shadows.

Our inner child blows bubbles out of us that highlight the positive parts of life.

Let your inner child blow those glorious bubbles.

Artist Statement

            The overall message that I intended my project to portray is that every cloud has a silver lining, you just have to allow yourself to look for it.  The theme focuses on how life seemed simpler and more fun as an innocent kid, but as we get older, it takes more effort to have a positive outlook on life.  Your “inner child,” is supposed to represent the part of you that still sees things in the way a kid sees them.

            My flash fiction starts off with fun and positive memories of my childhood that are probably relatable to some of the audience.  It then transitions into focusing on the reality of life today, which isn’t as easy as it used to be.  I then included the idea of letting your inner child come through and see the positive parts of life and search for the cloud’s silver lining.  There is always something positive you can focus on, but you have to choose a positive outlook in order to see it.

            For my portrait, I chose to use a close-up picture of half my face.  In my eye, I drew the silhouette of a girl, representing the inner child, blowing bubbles that float out of my eye and into the rest of the picture.  I chose to have the entire image be black and white, to represent the “so,so” or negative parts of life and the bubbles are multicolored and scattered throughout to highlight the color in the black and white, or the positive parts of life.  Overall, the portrait is supposed to represent your inner child coming from within you, allowing you the positive outlook on life by seeing through the colorful bubbles.

            My portrait and flash fiction are connected by the idea of allowing your inner child to peek through you and give you a positive outlook on life.  In the portrait, the inner child is the silhouette of the girl peeking through my eye and the positive outlook is the colorful bubbles.  In the flash fiction, it implies that you allow your inner child a glimpse into the world to magnify positivity by focusing on the bubbles.

       Reflection

Personality is a term that can have different meanings to different people.  There are different theories out there that people have examined closely.  While everyone might have a different idea of what personality is, there is a common concept of consistency.

An Invisibilia podcast, “The Personality Myth,” suggests that personality is based off consistency across situations (Personality). For example, if a person makes a mistake, that doesn’t determine them as a “bad” person.  If a person consistently makes bad decisions, then it might determine their personality as someone who makes poor decisions regularly.  In the Psychosocial notes, it states that personality is “a person’s enduring characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving,"(Green).  By using the word “pattern,” that is similar to the idea that the podcast was suggesting about consistency because a pattern is something that reoccurs.  

So if personality is based off consistency, does that mean someone who makes bad decisions consistently is a bad person?  Not necessarily.  At the beginning of the podcast, one of the women stated that someone in jail had a “permanently rotten” part of them (Personality).  This was implying that people can’t change, so once you make enough bad decisions, you have made yourself a bad person.  However by the end of the podcast, the woman decided that everyone is a mix of good and bad (Personality).  While some people may make more poor decisions, that doesn’t mean they are a bad person or that they can’t change.

 Personality is something that not only is based off consistency across situations, but it also is a recipe of different factors.  According to the Psychosocial notes, various parts of each person are combined or put together to make the whole personality (Green).  There are so many factors that play into this which means there are unlimited combinations.  Each combination is a different personality, which is why there are so many different types of people in the world.  

The Psychosocial notes provided different theories linking to personality.  Carl Jung, an experienced psychoanalyst believed that personality was determined by cultural and racial influences.  He focused on personal and collective unconscious.  Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, believed that personality was determined by biological factors.  His theory suggested that all humans have parts of themselves that react and balance differently, leading to different behaviors (Green). I believe that personality is determined by a combination of all of these factors.  In my mind, your personality evolves over time through your different experiences in life, which would relate to Jung's theory.  I also believe there may be some biological aspects that play a role in your personality too.  Each person has a unique personality containing a combination of factors that they have put together over time.  Everyone interprets different situations in a different way, leading to different mind sets, or personalities overall.  
An article on elements of personality stated that there are four main elements that determine personality including genetic makeup, your environment, shared family personality, and life experiences.  Experts have stated that your biological genetics determine around 40% of the contents of your personality.  Your environment such as work, friends, family, cultural or spiritual influences, or economic security contributes to your personality as well.  Researchers at King's College London studied how work experiences affected and shaped personalities of young adults.  Their research showed that work experiences were related to changes in personality traits in young adults from ages 18 to 26.  Shared family personality also influences your personality.  Identical twins only share about 50% of their personality traits, leading us to believe even more that there is a wide variety of personalities.  Family traditions such as volunteering may result in generosity showing up in your personality.  The last element, life experiences, helps build your personality too.  Childhood traumatic events and how we interpret feedback from peers affect our personality also.  If as a child you were rewarded with smiles when trying to make friends, that could determine you an extrovert.  However if while trying to make friends, you had trouble, that may lead to you being an introvert (Power).  I found that I agreed with this article in the idea that multiple factors determine your personality.  Rather than believing that your personality is only based off genetics or only your environment, I believe that it takes a combination of these to build your own unique personality.