The Black Projector

In isolation due to the corona virus lockdown, I have spent many days on my own finding various slightly different ways to pass the time. Reading, watching TV, yoga, sewing, tidying the flat…all have helped alleviate the boredom of this monotonous experience. Leaning towards misanthropy when we’re not on lockdown has mean that I have coped well with what has, for some people, become soul destroying.

As I’ve moved through this seclusion, I’ve also done more meditation than usual and thankfully have found answers to things I’ve needed answers to…and this morning I saw the significance of a blind spot that has held me back for quite a while.

The childhood and adolescence that I had plus my adulthood have been quite lonely and that feeling of separation has become woven into my life. It’s now part of me and I feel comfortable with it in the same way an old coat feels good. You know it needs replacing but it has, to some extent, moulded to your shape and movements. It’s predictable and warm and while it may not feel right, it feels good.

But then I realised this morning that I have lived a HUGE chunk of my life with my view of reality seen through what I now call the black projector.

To clarify…

Most of the fundamental and necessary paths of progression from infant to man were not ones that I trod, or even found. I found it had to make friends, believed I was fundamentally flawed and powerless and was desperate for something to find solace and inspiration in. I got that through the worlds of fantastical adventure of books, comics, TV and films. From the Chronicles of Narnia, to 2000AD, to Batman & Robin, to Star Wars there was a whole, rich, vivid world of heroes and villains, good and bad to be explored where I could vicariously live out my life, like millions of others, in escapism. This world was my salvation and I loved it. I lapped up the stories by CS Lewis and loved the exploits of future law enforcer Judge Dredd. Hey, I even liked Hawk the Slayer and found my ultimate passion in Enzo G Castellari’s two Bronx Warriors films in the early 80s.**

In about 1984 Marvel Comics ran a story that spanned many titles of its franchise called Secret Wars. In one story involving The Fantastic Four, a little boy, while trying to emulate his hero the Human Torch, doused himself in kerosene and set himself on fire. The Torch (Johnny Storm) visits the boy in hospital and the lad’s last words are “I wanted to be like you…” Grief stricken and racked with guilt Johnny hails a taxi rather than flying home using his super powers and tells the rest of the Four that he wants to quit. The Secret Wars antagonist, the Beyonder, then kidnaps Storm and takes him back in time as an observer to the boy’s life, sat in his bedroom alone happily reading comics about the Human Torch. Furious at what he sees as an attempt to rub his nose in the guilt he is already feeling Johnny demands to know why the Beyonder is doing this. The entity replies “it was not because of you that he died…but through you that he lived”.

The way I viewed escapist media as a child was that it was a distraction. I could read a book in a day if I liked it enough and would watch films but attach no significance to them beyond seeing them as a pleasant distraction. And then life became a bit more tedious and painful and I began to rely just a little more on what were meant to be merely pleasant diversions. Without even realising it I got more attached to the fantasy worlds and began to believe that there were aspects of characters in them that I could aspire to and be like if I tried hard enough. Fight like Jason Bourne; sing like Pavarotti; get muscles like Schwarzenegger, the list could go on. I had become so accustomed to feeling like this that I no longer realised it was unreal. I knew the movies were fake, I knew the people were actors but I felt that somehow their actions could be emulated. Feeling so fragile and worthless I held onto the belief that there was another world, somewhere, where I was so very much different. In 2011 I wrote a book entitled The Catastrophe of the Emerald Queen and later a sequel called The Sunder of the Octagon, under the collective name The Tales of Alegria. These two books explore worlds of fantasy, right and wrong and justice that come straight from the worlds I loved to explore as a child from Lewis, to Enid Blyton, to Robert E Howard.

If you grow up lonely you will find anything to cling to in order to feel safe and entertained. A world where I could deny my isolation and depression was one where I was a hero and able to walk through the minefields of chaos with a smile and witty quip to pass the day.

There were two projectors in my mind. There was the one through which I saw the fiction laid before me and took it as it was mean to be seen. Then there was the black projector, slightly further back and hidden in a blind spot that I only saw this morning as I sat on the bed with my eyes closed and counted my breaths. The black one was the one that recorded this world and let the emotions they inspired stay with me, easing me through the anxiety, stress and crippling anger that came from feeling like I was worthless and unlovable. Today I saw that projector for the first time and it had no further purpose. It was something I had put there long ago to cope. I unplugged it and carried it to a fictional grinder (the kind that you see on YouTube videos that can mash up car engines). I thanked it for being there for me and then pushed the button and destroyed it beyond repair.

The clarity this has given me is substantial. I finally finished book 3 in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series yesterday, after roughly a year with the book sat on the shelf, only a handful of chapters left to read. The reason I left it like this (and have done so before) was that the world it so beautifully illustrated was not one I wanted to end, and by keeping it alive that little bit longer it meant that I could keep it with me. Sub-conscious defence mechanisms from a miserable childhood that serve no real purpose any more.

There are another 11 books in the Wheel of Time. I’m going to download the next one today on my Kindle and read it and enjoy it without being emotionally linked to what is happening.

Old habits die hard, but when they do, you are free.

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** In 2015 I was interviewed as a 'special feature' for the Blu-ray of the second movie. A 13-minute documentary called 'The Hunt for Trash: Interview with Bronx Warriors Superfan Lance Manley'. This alone attests to the power of the Black Projector, but in a good way.