September 9th, 2006
On Honesty - Bloggers With Pseudonyms are Like Superheroes With Masks
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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.
