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From Gapingvoid
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I have been thinking about honesty today.
First, my daily horoscope advised me to be honest but not too honest -
You may be tired of always being the one to tell it like it is, even when you know someone else doesn’t want to hear the truth. In time your honesty will be appreciated, but you must be careful about overstating your case. Avoid self righteousness and others will be more likely to join your cause.
- and then, I read Po Bronson’s take on how we are increasingly relying on technology to be honest -
We need an excuse, it seems, more and more. We need a way to soften difficult conversations. We need some way of introducing ourselves to strangers, and we need a way to complain, and we need a way to be brutally honest. New technology (caller ID, voicemail, email, SMS, Tivo) happens to be very good at filling this need. We rely on it, more and more, to assist in a variety of difficult conversations.
Bronson also explains why we do it -
New research out of Princeton suggests that we actually process moral decisions in a different region of our brain when human contact is eliminated. If we have to confront the person, we process a moral decision in the parts of our brain that govern emotional empathy and social intelligence. If we only have to push a button, we process the decision near our temples, where we do our logical processing. We become dispassionate computers. And jerks.
The difference between talking in person and talking via technology is like the difference between an essay question and a True/False question. In face-to-face contact, far more than words are used to communicate. Tone is established, and para-verbal cues register mood. It’s a lot harder to tell a convincing lie in person, and it’s a lot harder to feign confidence. Rather than learn to manage these moments, we’ve punted it over to a realm where none of that matters.
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I have also been thinking about honesty lately.
My personal blog is, sometimes, very personal, prompting readers to leave behind comments like:
The last paragraph was poetic almost. And, I forgot to add….bold as well. Considering the number of people who read your blog, some of whom know you already, don’t you think such admissions might get you into umm….unexpected, unpleasant situations?
BTW, though it does take courage to write intricate details about your life on a public blog, it also shows that at some level no one truly matters to you. As if everyone, past and present, in your life are mere characters, interesting interacting modules. As if you have learnt how to objectify everything. And that objectification (and the ability to do so) is what you think sets you apart from others, raises the level at which you live.
Well, I write the way I do, because I don’t know any other way to write, or live. There’s freedom in not having to answer to anyone, about anything. There’s freedom in knowing that people who matter to you already know the worst about you. And there’s freedom in knowing that the script that is your life can stand scrutiny, more often than not.
Do I think that I live at a higher level than others? I used to, but time is a tough teacher and humility a lesson all of us have to learn.
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The second comment, incidentally, was from someone who calls herself Maya. It’s a beautiful name - both in its intonation and in its meaning (illusion) – but I think it’s a pseudonym (and what a perfect pseudonym it is, in the plethora of possibilities that it opens up)! Maya and I later found ourselves comment-flirting with each other -
Maya: Comment-, sms-, email-flirtations can sometime be the best. They excite, tease and yet leave a lot unsaid. You can say your mind, and yet distance yourself from your words. Something you can’t do in person or on phone.
Me: I am quite shameless that way, not only on comments, e-mails and SMSes, but also on phone and in person. It’s most fun, in fact, when you do it in person.
Maya: Well. I find myself agreeing with you. Unexpected honesty can sometimes be the biggest turn-on.
Me: Talking of turn ons, I like intelligent women with interesting names even better when there’s a blog URL or e-mail ID attached to them!
Maya: Now that’s an invitation, flirtation, compliment and complaint- all rolled into one. Sometimes there’s a thrill in anonymity.
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It reminded me of a blogger-friend who has been thinking of revealing herself -
I’ve written my first post on the blogosphere, as myself. There were times I thought IdeaSmith was getting to be more than my identity…and this might go some way in telling me how much.
But, I’m afraid of being judged, I’m afraid of being seen (as myself), I’m afraid of destroying comfortable illusions that I’ve created and creating new, uncomfortable realities.
- and another favorite blogger who did reveal herself, on her 200th post –
I grew tired of writing as Evenstar. I missed my name.
- and of two rather well-known blogger-friends who asked me to take their real names off my blog, because they didn’t want to reveal their identities.
It also made me think of Spiderman revealing himself at a Times Square press conference in Marvel Comic’s Civil War #2 -
My name is Peter Parker and I’ve been Spider-Man since I was 15 years old. Any questions?
- and my own fifty-five fiction piece on superhero suits –
He tried on various superhero suits (Superman, Spiderman, Batman, Captain America, even Green Hornet), but none of them felt right. Depressed, he wandered around the Superhero Suit Mart, until he saw it in a side aisle.
He put on the suit, untied his ponytail and cracked the whip for effect. It was perfect.
Wonder Woman!
Finally, it made me think of British celebrity blogger Belle De Jour sharing her step-by-step guide for staying anonymous -
Trust no one.
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So, bloggers with pseudonyms are like superheroes in masks, presumed identities can be as misleading as superhero suits, anonymity is serious business, and technology is an aid to honesty, but, as Po Branson asks -
When you have to tell the truth to someone’s face, will you remember how it’s done?
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PS: In spite of all my pretensions to honesty, on her birthday, I posted this poem on my blog, knowing that she will read it -
On
Your
Birthday,
Let me fib,
Yes, and tell you that
I don’t love you anymore,
That I’m over you, finally, after five years.
Let me thus set you free from the obligations that love, even unrequited love,
Imposes on the one who is loved. Let me disappear from your life, vanish. Let this last poem about us be my birthday gift to you.
In spite of all her pretensions to honesty, she became ‘Maya’.
Now, we play hide and seek with each other, and don’t even know who is hiding and who is seeking and why.
Comments (27)
Anonymity is rather important to me. I am a lot more open on my blog than I am in real life about my feelings. The blog offers a means to say all I want to say, without being too vulnerable. I love that!
@ qsg: I have quite a few blogger-friends who feel that way and I understand what you mean. I’m an exhibitionist, though, both online and offline, and my two personas are not very different.
And I’m an exhibitionist in real life but anonymity allows me to be own mundane self.
@ Ideasmith: You have no mundane self, but more about that later today.
I am not sure about the superhero bit (or rather, I am), but I do have a mask.
More than the “honesty” (anyone who writes, in a journal, on a blog etc, even if it is a private one, writes with an reader in mind) what I find quite interesting about what you do here, is how you make the “self referentiality” (via posts pointing to older posts, and including snippets from them) that usually goes on in our heads more explicit. That said, yes, one of these days, you will have to provide a glossary for all the “shes”, “hes” etc that litter these laybrinth for a less patient digger.
Lage raho!
@ Sashi:
There’s only one he here and that’s yours truely. Yes, there is more than one she here, but I don’t know what to do about it, expect tagging posts as she1, she2, she3 and so on.
Very interesting post. I could relate to the identity crisis. At time, I too get tired of this Elizabeth Bennett thingy. But this is the path I’ve chosen and I must go on till I turn out to be a Anna Karenina or Nastasia Philipovna or even Fitzwilliam Darcy
@ Liz/ Ideasmith/ QSG: Inspired by your wholehearted endorsements of anonymity, I have started an anonymous blog, or rather, a blog with a presumed identity. The first one to find it gets to make me do one silly thing!
*Noted for future reference*
@ The Date: You just have to name the silliness and it will be done!
…and then duly posted, I bet!
@ The Date: That too…
I think you can be more bold in your expression being annonymous. There’s a nice poem in bangla: “Korite parina kaaj, shoda bhoy shoda laaj.” (Can’t do anything, ‘m always afraid and ashamed)
I have a blog under my name and another one as annonymous, The later one is more popular. And to tell you the truth I enjoyed in writing in the later more.
@ Rajputro: Rajputro itself seems to be quite popular; an even more popular anonymous blog is amazing! I must make you whisper its URL to me some day.
I agree with ideasmith. in real life, often ur putting up a show. Because ur known and ur being sized up, being expected to perform. The anonymity the blog offers allows shedding of the defence mechanism, allows experimentation. Also, if ur judged there, the anonymity allows you to dissociate just as quickly. Maybe it is a bit of a scaredy cat thing to do, but as long as ur taking responsibilty gor ur opinions, and not running from that… its ok. hmm?
@ N: As long as Ideasmith and you write as charmingly as you do, I don’t mind the anonymity at all.
Ah. but you have never read and encouraged, how would we know?
@ N: And now that you know…
we will keep writing charmingly, tho not as well as ideasmith
@ Ideasmith: It seems that you have another admirer here!
@ Ideasmith: Well, that hasn’t been my experience so far!
@ ideasmith
and its not what salma told me of you, tho she kept ur identity a secret
@ ideasmith: Look, I told you!!!
>So, bloggers with pseudonyms are like superheroes in masks, presumed identities can be as misleading as superhero suits, anonymity is serious business, and technology is an aid to honesty,
You know, honesty doesn’t come with a name, it comes with an examined life. You’ll also find that most “anonymous” bloggers are known to their friends. On the rare occasions when I do blog, I prefer to do so anonymously simply because I’m not interested in random third parties knowing who I am- a simple issue of privacy. I’ve also met with many of the people who I’ve got to know online. The internet is a frequently dangerous place. The need to protect your identity may not stem from fears about emotional vulnerability, but more mundance concerns- preventing identity theft, preventing random psychos from getting to know where you live/work.
@ Gaspode: Of course…
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