Che Guevara and Christ: Rebels in the forest of identity
the mask upon our engine of desire
"I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way to insuring one's immortality." — James Joyce
We are creative machines, engines of desire in our purest state, so what will we do in this life with our urge for production?
We create our own realm of images for the world to explore, our own puzzles, our own formulations of our psyches for the external world to explore. And in that external world lies a realm of subjects that can take your creation into new formulations.
These masks become the symbolized and self-created identities that serve as a means for self-expression and a method of navigating the social and cultural landscapes we inhabit.
We ourselves are forms of artistic expression. Our identities become creations that are multifaceted and often contain elements that are, whether deliberate or not, obscure and ambiguous.
"Where does a wise man hide a leaf? In the forest. But what does he do if there is no forest? He grows a forest to hide it in." — Father Brown
But what about the context and environment in relation to identity?
We have the illusionary object of ourselves deep within us.
Should we be surprised by this?
We hide from difficulties in our lives, everywhere, all the time. What about those difficult subjects that you are afraid to bring up with family and friends? "Let people believe what they like!" Blasphemy.
Your mask is under the constant interplay with everyone around you. You become the creation you see in the world. By sitting idle upon beliefs you find problematic, those beliefs become part of you, they become part of the mask you put out into the external realm of images.
We embed ourselves and become embedded within certain social or cultural groups where our identities feel less conspicuous. Collective identities, much like our individual ones, continually come into a process of being created and uncreated in various forms.
Your understanding of what falls under the identity of a rebel changes.
Your understanding of what constitutes the stereotype of a Capitalist changes.
Your understanding of the identity of a religious zealot changes.
The mask of the symbol attempts to create a form of cohesion, yet the complexity of the object takes on new and nuanced forms, constantly, and much remains hidden.
The masks we find ourselves in become our frame of reference and the toolkit for engagement with the world.
These masks become puzzles of meaning and necessitate interpretation. This is the only way we come into those moments of understanding.
In essence, these identities become a medium through which individuals communicate with the world, assert their presence, and etch their legacy in the collective consciousness of their social milieu.
If you wish to change the flowing mask of a sect within a collective mask held by a society, it begins with confronting your own mask, and then being willing to confront the individual masks of others that formulate the various collective wills around us.
We are all creative forces in this world.
"This is the way Christ brings freedom: when confronting him, we become aware of our own freedom. And does not, mutatis mutandis, the same hold for Che Guevara? The photos showing him under arrest in Bolivia, surrounded by government soldiers, have a weird Christological aura, as if we see a tired but defiant Christ on his way to crucifixion—no wonder that, when, moments prior to his death, the executioner’s pistol already aimed at him, the hand holding it trembling, Guevara looked at him and said: “Aim well. You are about to kill a man”...
And, indeed, is the basic message of Guevara not precisely this: the message of how, in and through all his failures, he persisted, he went on?...
In an unsurpassable irony of history, after the triumph of the Cuban revolution, everything he did was a failure—the dismal failure of his economic policies as the Cuban minister of economy (after a year, food had to be rationed…), the failure of his Congo adventure, the failure of his last mission in Bolivia; however, all these “human, all too human” failures somehow fade into the background, the backdrop against which the contours of his properly over-human (or, why not, inhuman) figure appear, confirming Badiou’s motto that the only way to be truly human is to exceed ordinary humanity, tending towards the dimension of the inhuman." — Slavoj Zizek
Che Guevara is an example of a certain figure who, through their actions and the narratives constructed around them, along with their own mask, become more than just individuals—they transform into symbols that embody specific ideals, values, desires, and creation.
For better or worse, they become their own apparatus of change. Guevara's identity, particularly in the face of failure, became a mask not just of a man but of the enduring spirit of resistance and the pursuit of ideals beyond personal success or gain.
We all hold identities, with the masks we wear, and they are layered with meanings and symbols that extend far beyond our immediate personhood. We become the change in the world, even if we wish otherwise.
You cannot avoid this fate; it's as certain as death itself.
The external becomes you because the external realm of symbols becomes your desire, and you are desire.
Your mask becomes immortalized, not just through your actions, but through the myriad interpretations and significances ascribed to you by others. And this is done to you unconsciously by everyone around you.
You can only begin making the unconscious, conscious; and that beginning has no end.
Figures like Guevara find themselves within environments or contexts that amplify the impact of their identities. His identity as a revolutionary leader wasn't just a product of his actions but also of the socio-political 'forest' that existed and that he helped cultivate.
He embraced his mask!
Even when the mask did wrong!
The rebel can never be content.
This 'forest'—the larger context of revolutionary struggle and ideology—both concealed and accentuated his identity, turning his personal narrative into a collective symbol.
These masks become part of a larger dialogue—between the individual and society, between the person and history. These masks, imbued with layers of meaning and symbolism, often encapsulate not just individual personas but collective hopes, fears, ideals, and struggles.
It's essence all the way down! The center of the maze is empty, yet the center creates a new maze.
The mask becomes the tool that expresses a sense of your own inner desire. The expression that comes from the subject.
And the subject itself is a lie!
Stay curious.