The Internet is a great place to hide, isn’t it?
Heck, almost all anyone sees of you is some text on a screen, removed from its context and removed from the author’s too. How often do you really get to know someone through their blog? Through their commentary on your blog?
I have off-line relationships with a couple of folks, but not many. Some of you know me better than others. Some of you might say what you see here isn’t necessarily what you get with me. I don’t know a lot of you, but those I do know offline seem the same to me as you are online, for the most part.
Some of you have more depth. Some of you are incapable of pretending enough to present a facade on the ‘Net. My wife isn’t anything like her blog persona to me. She’s way too rich a person to be encapsulated in a blog. She’s shared herself with a few blessed souls, but not too many. I myself share a few aspects of my personality here, but not the totality of who I am – I’m way, way too shy for that. I don’t even share the totality of who I am with my real-life friends. I don’t think of it as consciously hiding or deceiving anyone, it’s just a matter of not revealing too much. I think of it as not washing my laundry in public.
Some of you are pretty clever folks, sharp wits, great conversationalists. But is that the real you? Are you able to do that on your blog or on the Internet because you can stop, think about what you want to say, and then make your statements? Or are you the same, quick-witted, fully-exposed person in reality as you are in pixels?
There’s a lot to people, a lot to try and digest. There’s too much for anyone person to put down to paper … or text of digital format, for that matter, unless you’ve been practicing doing so for a long time. I myself have not, and therefore don’t know how to go beyond what I’ve already offered here. Bits, pieces, tidbits, nuggets … these will come out and flavor us, as people, over time and with enough words which range into those areas of us. But unless you’re set on revealing your innermost person, baring your soul, how do you communicate who you are to people?
Do you do that at all? Are you willing to or trying to?
Sound off, y’all – now tell who are you, as The Who sing every week on CSI.
-JDT-
All original content © 2009 DarcKnyt
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