Two very inspiring women have made me think about the masks that we wear at different times. The first thoughts were fired up during Remittance Girl‘s session at Eroticon. You should check out her session here. The idea that when we wear a mask, we can be more truly ourselves than when we are in other situations goes against what I have heard many people say. It certainly made me think about how I am on social media and on this blog compared to other aspects of my life.
Just as my thinking about this was starting to die down in the hustle and bustle of my life, Malin fired me up again with this post.
Who am I?
This question keeps coming back to me over the last few years. I am clearly a blogger otherwise this post would not exist. I am also a friend, a lover, a parent, an ex, a professional, a colleague… I could go on and on with the list. I am different in all of these different aspects of me. I have come across people who present a wholly created persona. I am not one of those people. In whichever aspect of my life you find me, you get the real me.
In trying to think how to explain it, I came across the analogy of editing photographs. Some people heavily photoshop images so that it is hard to relate the presented picture with the original. Others edit more truthfully. They might choose a filter or adjust the different light levels. They might lighten or deepen the shadows, or they might crop the shot to focus on what is important for that image. To me, this fits with the different aspects of me. I filter and crop who I am in different parts of my life. That doesn’t mean that any part of me has ceased to exist, it is just that it can’t be seen right then.
Filtering and cropping is important. My professional life would be severely compromised if I didn’t crop out the insatiable slut from that aspect of me (shudders at the heart failure that could be caused). This would be a very different blog if I didn’t use the filters to reduce the view of me as a parent and draw the sexual me to the forefront of attention. Even amongst my friends, they get aspects of me but they don’t see everything.
I really enjoy the feeling of finding special people who I can allow to peruse my gallery and share the different aspects of me. I like making connections that allow me to open up a new view of me to friends. Meeting people through here and through Twitter has been an incredible pleasure for exactly that reason. I can’t promise to show anyone everything as there are some password protected parts of me that even I don’t often see. I can promise that any view anyone gets of me, is one hundred percent true and really me. Of course, as I am not a photograph, the edits aren’t done and finished. I constantly evolve and develop in all aspects of me and so my filters will be tweaked and my cropping ratios will change. The true me lies in the completely unedited version but that can’t be shared as it is. Each edited version, each aspect of me, draws out the facets connect me to others and to situations in the best way and hides those facets that would be a distraction or too great a risk.
In reference to my original musings, I don’t wear a mask. I certainly don’t hide behind one. There isn’t a fake and a real me. I am not masked but I am filtered.
Beautiful post and so very true for me too.
“In whichever aspect of my life you find me, you get the real me.” – YES!
Rebel xox
I’m delighted to have helped to prompt so much thought on this issue. Consumer society exerts great pressure on us to productivise everything, including ourselves. We are goaded into statements of definition, producing cogent, cohesive and accessible personas for easy and quick consumption.
Almost all the things I am don’t have words. When I say what I am (take a look at my profile on twitter) I pun with words to indicated that the language I can use to describe myself is inadequate. It is not ‘all-me’ – it’s just the aspects of me that conform within the social order. People who know me intimately have their own understanding of who I am. And me… the minute I can put in words what I am is the minute I am reading to shrug off this mortal coil.