RSSHonesty Monday, or: A Realizing Interaction
Tonight (i.e., some time between 10pm June 24 and 2:45am June 25), The Partner and I got together with two friends* of ours.
The interesting aspect of it all was our seeming difference; the truth was our similarity.
While some can acknowledge certain realities, others can acknowledge others’.
We edit ourselves to fit “appropriate” paradigms.
I didn’t know the word ‘paradigm‘ until I looked it up. I didn’t truly know the word ‘paradigm’ until I saw it utilized, several times, in several different contexts, at which point I looked it up again, to learn the meaning, the ways in which it was used.
That is how it goes, is it not?
We know ourselves. Until we don’t.
We know ourselves to be true. Until we aren’t.
What we show to Others, is the key.
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At our gathering tonight, someone suggested that bloggers (one in particular, but it extends to all of us) hold an Honesty Tuesday (or whatever-day), in which we re-told a story honestly: perhaps it was something we posted a week ago, or two days ago, which wasn’t quite “honest”: it embellished, it skewed, it strained, it jumped the fence; it lied. We lied. We made the story, for you, our audience, more interesting. And so, on Honesty Tuesday (or whatever-day, say, Monday), we tell you the truth.
On Wednesday, 13 June 2007, I said I cleaned the office. The Partner, being as he is, objected. Said I was lying. Said I didn’t clean.
I repeat, that which I said before:
… last week I slacked and didn’t do much of any cleaning.
I did not say “I cleaned” that week. I said I “didn’t do much” cleaning that week. Which means, technically, I did not clean.
That is my Honesty Statement**.
I did not clean. The week I said I didn’t do much of any cleaning, I truly didn’t.
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Who is to check us? Us “bloggers”?
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I have been interested in “blogging” since at least 1998. I started my own “blog” in 2000, at least.
So, how much have I lied over the years?
How much have I “embellished”?
I know of few bloggers — in “real life”. Those I know, I cannot out, for it is their story. It is not for me to correct.
How do we, as “bloggers”, self-regulate, self-censor, ourselves?
How do we tell the “truth”? (Of which, thank you Dr. Kantor, there is no One Truth).
Shall we rely upon those we personally know? Those in our offline lives?
What is this offline life?
Are we not preaching some sort of True offline life when we type these words and “publish” them to you, our reader(s)?
Goffman (1959), in his ever-wise believing, likened us all as social actors, our lives to the stage, to drama; hence, ‘dramaturgy‘.
We play our part. We act our part. We follow our part. We append our part. We write our part. As dictated.
As “bloggers”, who are we? I post pictures of myself. Of my friends. Of my surroundings.
Who am I? Why do you read me? (As text and still images, of all things.)
Who are You and who am I?
Is this, this text in which we interact, some sort of true exchange?
Are we building one another?
Do we build ourselves?
What effect does this have? –This effect of being able to edit ourselves? –As we are to present ourselves, in this blog atmosphere? –This ‘blogosphere’?
I am a ‘blogger’. I write shit/stuff/words/prose/poems/journals/articles. I read shit et al. I leave comments. I give myself screen names, nicknames, blog names; I sign-on. I write as I am in many/specific stages/contexts/stances/presents.
I am an actor. This is one of my stages. You, whoever You may be, are my audience. I adjust myself for You, to You. You Read Me.
I hit the ‘backspace’ button and what I wrote is gone. I type anew. What does this affect?
What does this mean for us? –Whoever ‘us’ may be.
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I Read You.
You Read Me.
Perhaps we acknowledge each other. Perhaps we identify each other. Perhaps we agree with one another.
But played out in “real life” (Real Life), we don’t.
What does this mean?
How do we combat this?
I watch an episode of “The Sopranos” with friends, and what?
I go home to My Reality, and what?
Each one of us: we live our lives, pretending things are great, pointing out that which is not so great but kinda-okay, or that which truly sucks, and what?
It is 2007 and I attempt to read everything that has come before me, and what?
I contemplate?
I write?
Write what?
This dribble?
I jump through more hoops, and wind up in academia?
And what?
I am searching for the answers; I have I found none, so I continue, almost in vain; but I Point Because I Am Singling You Out.
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*Chef, you seem to know what’s going on. Congrats on the move-in.
**Please point out others.
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One Comment
First of all, because of a stupid commercial (which of course I now cannot remember what it is peddling) every time I see or hear paradigm, I change it to paradigum because that’s how the guy in the commercial says it and it makes me giggle every time I think of it.
Second, I like to think that any lies told on the blog have been caused by faulty memory. Other than the Obfuscation game, I have never consciously written an entry that I knew to be false. Of course, you see I qualify my statement. Consciously, I say, so that if anyone were to ever go back these five+ years of blogging and found a lie I could hide behind something.
My lies, if I can call them that, are lies of omission. There are plenty of things I could share but that I choose not to because they are too private, too shameful, too pitiful to put into words that others can see. When I chose to not write about my weight, I felt that was a lie because I felt I wasn’t giving people the full picture (no pun intended).
I’ve had a couple of discussions with other bloggers about how my own writing suffers from the inability to embellish. Sure, I exaggerate but that’s so obvious that no one could possibly be confused by that (hopefully). But there are times when I experience something that I’d like to blog about but my telling is so tedious, so long-winded (like this comment) that in the end I choose to not even try. Others tell me I should fudge here and there, to make the story readable. But I don’t feel comfortable doing that.
What are we accountable for I guess is the question. If I choose to not write about the fact that I’ve been overweight my whole life, and make no mention at all of my physical self, am I somehow misleading people? If they envision someone thinner, have I played an active part in a lie? How much of ourselves do we owe to others? I try to make the writing interesting or engaging (try being the operative word) but in the end I’m mostly writing for myself and beause of that, I want to be as honest as I possibly can be on a public forum because I want to be able to look back on these words and remember who I used to be, what I used to think, how I used to act. What others take from it, well, one can only guess.