We asked Empty Heaven to describe the thought process that went into the writing of "Shadowself":
Jungian psychology purports that every human has a "Shadow Self," an unknown, unconscious side. It's mostly thought of as a receptacle for all of our negative feelings, although it's chaotic nature can often diffuse emotions as we understand them, replacing them with an incomprehensible mush.
When I listen to "Paired," I am reminded that not only do our devices come equipped with a personality (however artificial), we also teach them our own. However, we don't teach them how to be us as we really think we are. We fill them with data points, search history, demands, private notes, and all sorts of other private things. If someone were to try to make a portrait of us based off of our devices, it would be an undoubtedly warped, sadly sterile, and sometimes disturbing one. I know mine would be weird for sure. I believe it's accidentally poetic that they even get little Apple IDs with our name.
"Shadowself" is about having a double, a doppelganger that follows you wherever you go, and it feeds you stressors, insecurity, and endless stimulation...the proverbial "devil on one's shoulder." But, you are slightly to blame, because you taught it everything it knows. I consider this to be the dark side to the concept of "Paired," a very funny and also sweet podcast that I love.
Lyrics:
When I move, so do you
When I deviate, you see through every move i make like i was scripted
You can feel when weight has shifted
When I look away, you disapprove
We are one in the same
We play symmetrical party games
We dance together in the shower
We rise and fall at the same hours
But when I sleep, you interrupt the dream
I built myself a shadowself
and always want to look at them
and when I tell myself I don’t
I spiral and I look again
Am I sick? I am sick
Seeing double and I’m second pick
They hold the things that I have hidden
All the thoughts that are forbidden
To keep their mouth shut, I’ve gotta pay a tithe
Call a priest, call a nun
Call the ghost adventures hosts’s own son
I need an exorcism
I need light without a prism
There’s a schism in my heart and it’s alive
I built myself a shadowself
and always want to look at them
and when I tell myself I don’t
I spiral and I look again
It’s horrible to hold them
and it’s even worse to let them go
It’s horrible to keep from people
even worse to let them know
It’s so hard to have me in my hands
When the night turns its head
The lonely hours reveal what I had said to so and so sometime
it always feels like violent crime
my double will enunciate the words
When I covet the face
of a man I want to have replace my visage in the mirror,
my double draws the image nearer,
and now I have to focus til I’m sure
When I don’t know a thing,
my own double starts to bring the fount of knowledge to my idle hands
My brain retracts, ennui expands
Now knowledge isn’t special anymore
I built myself a shadowself
I taught it when it came to me
I won’t be held responsible
But I oughta be, I oughta be
It’s horrible to hold them
and it’s even worse to let them go
It’s horrible to keep from people
even worse to let them know
It’s so hard to have me in my hands
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