The Absentee Oversoul
The superb show Moon Knight (Marvel, Disney+) was one I never actually intended to watch. The pre-release hype made it look like a load of woke drivel but it’s now my favourite MCU spin-off and MK is my favourite superhero by a long shot.
Steven Grant is a nerdy, kind and gentle man working at a museum. He has dissociative personality disorder and his second personality is an uber-confident badass named Marc Spector who is the hero Moon Knight, an emissary of the Egyptian god Khonshu. In the latest epiosde we found out Marc created Steven when he was a child to cope with the systematic emotional and physical abuse he suffered from his mother, who blamed him for the death of his younger brother. Frequently hitting him and saying she hated him, Marc was powerless to stop her and made up a second personality to absorb all the negativity who would come to the fore when he couldn’t cope any more. He grew up to become a soldier and later a mercenary but, when his mother finally died, he began to rely more on his Steven persona to deal with his grief and unresolved issues, and eventually the two personalities began claiming usage rights of the body.
Oscar Isaac is a phenomenal actor (he sucks as Poe Dameron in the Star Wars sequels but I love everything else he’s in) and plays the two VERY different sides incredibly well. In the latest episode we saw the two on a boat being taken to the afterlife by the Egyptian God Tawaret a “bipedal hippopotamus with limbs like those of a feline”. As they revisit their childhood they realise why Marc made Steven and argue over what should be done. As spirits rise from beneath the boat to claim their soul, they fight back but Steven is pulled over and only Marc remains safe as the episode closes.
What I had expected to be revealed when I saw the first episode a few weeks ago, was either that Steven created Marc to cope with his nerdyness (like a fantasy Indiana Jones) or that they were two spirits in the same body. The reveal that the super tough assassin Marc was the original person was a shock.
Now…
The reason this episode resonated with me was because I have always felt that there was a part of me that was buried and not revealing itself. Since I was about 4 I’ve experienced things that made me fearful of life and what it had to offer. I also believe in the concept of the immortal spirit and while I’m most definitely not religious, I think we do simply move on when we die and, for want of a better word, reincarnate somewhere else. After all, the universe is not only big but FUCKINGLY SCARINGLY HUGE and it is impossible to me that in this vast expanse of stars, Earth could be the only place with sentient life. My theory is that we move on and go to another place and then another and another, sometimes maybe even coming back here. I’ve done this before and I’ll do it again. It makes sense as to why we experience and learn so much but have such a short time on the planet.
Why would we do all this if it is simply meaningless?
In Moon Knight, Marc becomes a god’s avatar. He is the vessel for the god to exact justice on the wrongdoers and evil people in society. My theory after watching this is that what we learn in this world is added to a collective set of experiences that our soul will experience over time in other planes of existence. We don’t remember what happened before (and won’t remember what we learned in this life when we move to the next one) BUT somewhere there is the real us, the true spirit that will one day move forward with the knowledge from all the experiences it has had.
Watching Moon Knight and I felt like when I was born the main spirit of me was there and participating but threw up its hands and went “bollocks to this, wake me up when you’re dead and we’ll do the next one together” and simply went to sleep once things happened that were weird, unfair or made me feel miserable. That “third voice” that you hear in your head when anything is happening (the rational, calm side that is merely observing) is your higher, true self. Mine, having lived a multitude of lives before, realised when I was about 4 years old, that things were going to be a bit shit and just decided to let the avatar (me in this life) deal with it and wait this out for as long as I have on Earth. He/ It knew this wasn’t going to be a normal set of circumstances (as a kid I was not only told not to hit bullies back but also that I should simply sit there and take abuse as I either deserved it or it was payment in kind for favours owed) and being cynical, decided to just wait.
As Marc created Steven to cope with abuse, the truer form of me decided to let this incarnation carry the can and moved away. He/ It’s not gone, it’s just been dormant for a very long time. Two days ago I meditated on this and decided to try and talk to that side of me, the Marc side, and let it have control. It didn’t take over like Steven or Marc do, but came back as if to say “What do you want now?” and I offered it control. What I felt afterwards was subtle but noticeable. The fears and Groundhog Day-esque inability to learn from what I was doing were replaced by something or somebody that actually noted what was going on. I feel a little different and my libido has also increased (I’m 51 so that IS a big deal).
The higher learning self, or oversoul, is slightly arrogant. It’s had a lot of time, been around the block and knows a thing or three. It would look at a life where very little could be added to what it already knew and decide to just sit back and relax, letting the mind-wiped avatar get on with it.
I have never felt attached to anything, never felt like setting down roots and starting a family and, up until very recently, never really wanted children. I needed to realise that, in layman’s terms, a part of me simply switched itself off.
Moon Knight apparently has a third, hidden personality that Marc and Steven don’t know about who’s a complete psycho, so this blog may become irrelevant in a few days with regard to the comparison if that proves to be the case.
Time will tell but I love this show and it has helped me come to terms with why I’ve always felt trapped and that there was a part of me that wasn’t so much hiding away but just didn’t want to get involved.
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