Now many crises in peoples lives occur because the hero role that theyve assumed for one situation or set of situations no longer applies to some new situation that comes up, orthe same thing in effectbecause they havent the imagination to distort the new situation to fit their old role. This happens to parents, for instance, when their children grow older, and to lovers when one of them begins to dislike the other. If the new situation is too overpowering to ignore, and they cant find a mask to meet it with, they may become schizophrenica last-resort maskor simply shattered. All questions of integrity involve this consideration, because a mans integrity consists in being faithful to the script hes written for himself. Ive said youre too unstable to play any one part all the timeyoure also too unimaginativeso for you these crises had better be met by changing scripts as often as necessary. This should come naturally to you; the important thing for you is to realize what youre doing so you wont get caught without a script, or with the wrong script in a given situation. You did quite well, for example, for a beginner, to walk in here so confidently and almost arrogantly a while ago, and assign me the role of a quack. But you must be able to change masks at once if by some means or other Im able to make the one you walked in with untenable. PerhapsIm just suggesting an offhand possibilityyou could change to thinking of me as The Sagacious Old Mentor, a kind of Machiavellian Nestor, say, and yourself as The Ingenuous But Promising Young Protg, a young Alexander, who someday will put all these teachings into practice and far outshine the master. Do you get the idea? Orthis is repugnant, but it could be used as a last resortThe Silently Indignant Young Man, who tolerates the ravings of a Senile Crank but who will leave this house unsullied by them. I call this repugnant because if you ever used it youd cut yourself off from much that you havent learned yet. Its extremely important that you learn to assume these masks wholeheartedly. Dont think theres anything behind them: ego means I, and I means ego, and the ego by definition is a mask. Where theres no egothis is you on the benchtheres no I. If you sometimes have the feeling that your mask is insincereimpossible word!its only because one of your masks is incompatible with another. You mustnt put on two at a time. Theres a source of conflict, and conflict between masks, like absence of masks, is a source of immobility. The more sharply you can dramatize your situation, and define your own role and everybody elses role, the safer youll be. It doesnt matter in Mythotherapy for paralytics whether your role is major or minor, as long as its clearly conceived, but in the nature of things itll normally be major. Now say something.