A World of Hydes
I don't know if Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is a mandatory read in literature class these days. I know I read it on my own clock when I was nearly out of high school. One of the lessons I took from the book, though perhaps not the main point, was that Dr. Jekyll in his addiction to a potion that would change him into a different person who could commit the blackest of crimes with no perceivable consequences or repercussions, was a mirror of mankind's willingness to do normally rude, thoughtless, and unkind things when it seemed that there would be no spot or stain upon his own character, no consequence, seemingly, to affect him.
Just last night, it was nearly ten o'clock, and I was driving home from choir rehearsal. At that hour, even Capital Blvd., the ever congested thoroughfare around Raleigh, was relatively clear. With a mixture of weariness and poignant apathy, I began jack rabbiting, fearfully over the speed limit, trying to see how many cars I could pass and just how quickly I could get home.
Halfway there I cut very abruptly in front of another car while switching lanes so that in the face of the red light I could be first. Certainly there was the chance that this could have caused an accident, but more glaring was the fact that it was just plain old rude, and I hated it when people did that to me. What struck me however, was not the fact that it bothered me, but that it didn't. What went through my head was, "Ooops, oh well, at least I'll probably never see that person again anyhow, so it doesn't really matter. And even if I do, he'll never know me as the rude driver who cut him off at the red light."
As soon as this thought passed through my head, I suddenly realized just how easy it was for me to be rude when I have the anonymity of a stranger on the phone, a driver in a nondescript, white Toyota, a nameless sentence on cyberspace. Not only is it easy, but there's a part of me that enjoys being able to be rude when I'm not me. That is, when I'm not Christianna Hellwig, the sweet Violin teacher who has a reputation to keep and boldly claims the name of Christ, and so must be careful not to drag it through the dirt. But an anonymous blog comment, a faceless driver, a nameless stranger in a crowded mall, it's just too easy these days to create our own Edward Hydes. And the frightening thing is, that the more we do it,
the more we heedlessly trample over other people and do whatever our selfish passions dictate, the more we want to do it.
In America these days, with our ability to travel far, to rub shoulders with so many more people than an individual used to have the capacity to do, the way we have the power to get lost in the crowd, to disappear into cyberspace, zoom off down the road, there is so much more danger that we become a country full of Dr. Jekylls and Mr. Hydes. To our acquaintances and friends, and those we meet in our official titles we are the kind, helpful Dr. Jekyll, to the nameless stranger we are Mr. Hyde, and like Dr. Jekyll:
the more we give in to Hyde, the more he starts to assimilate us and become who we truly are.
I had no intention of turning this into a sermon, friends. These are the musings of one who has realized a blind-spot in her own life; a place where I was letting sin creep in and didn't even notice because it wasn't having any immediate consequences on my life. You see I've realized that I don't want to wait until I wake up one morning and find that even in the presence of acquaintances I've become Mr. Hyde, and more importantly, I don't want God, who sees every rude thing I do, to have to shake his head over the way I so unkindly treat my fellow men. I don't need to be first in front of the light. There's no call to speak harshly just because my reputation isn't at stake, and to live in any avenue, a life that subtracts rather than adds value to the lives of others, is to deny my very purpose.
Okay, end of lecture, that's what's been going on with me, as of late. What about you, have you ever struggled with your own Mr. Hyde?
Of course since this is a music blog and you expect music, I'm going to end this post with a video which I've hesitated to upload because not only do I dislike my singing voice, I also dislike my drama, however, I think you all might get a kick out of it anyway, so here goes.
~ Christianna
