I have always loved the idea of anonymity & pseudonyms! Being able to express deep thoughts and secrets without anybody knowing who you really are. You can curse and cry and call people assholes and it doesn’t matter coz nobody knows who you are. I have blogged about intimate moments and thoughts and really private longings and it feels safe…you can’t be tracked down, discovered for being a bitch or even praised for having a fantastically novel thought. If anybody judges you… it doesn’t really matter in the bigger scheme of things. They don’t know who you are.
I had a mortifying moment this week when I logged onto facebook and discovered my deep intimate anonymity as posts on my my public profile. MORTIFIED! Somehow, somewhere I must have accidently set the notes section to retrieve blog posts…. I have no idea how it happened but my heart just sank right into panic. Anybody could have seen it…a few did, some added a like here & there and my head went rushing frantically for the “oh crap card”. Any of my 600 + contacts could have (and may have for all I know) read these intimate thoughts and known it was me. (Family, friends, colleagues, my previous students… my boss if he cared for facebook more).
I very urgently found that little setting and stopped it then proceeded to individually *FB really should consider a batch setting system* deleted each post that came from my blog.
And once my reactive self had done that…my brain started its job…
Would people really discard me, hate or judge me if they really knew my deeper thoughts?
Would anybody really, truly be appalled to know that I have sex…that I hurt…that I feel inadequate…that I have goofy loves?
Would anybody de-friend me…fire me or want nothing to do with me if they knew my mistakes? The things I feel guilty about and the people I struggle to accept?
If they did… how would that make my life worse?
The thing that struck me today is how we are often so true to ourselves in a blog or behind a pseudonym and then in real life we fade into what we think people will accept. We don’t really say what we mean and/or always mean what we say. On the blog we vent and vomit…in real life… we smile and nod and have inner dialogues with ourselves.
Is straight forward honesty that offensive? Why are we so sensitive to it?
I am very aware that, as Christian, my purpose on earth is to represent God’s love and mercy. I have conflict about whether my actual thoughts and actions are right or would be acceptable in His eyes. Would people see my real thoughts and feelings and think I don’t love God? Yes…a few might, but and maybe this is my overall point:
I am not perfect. I won’t pretend to be. This is my life, this is my journey and at the end of it all the only 2 people whose opinions of me REALLY (as in in the big scheme of the universe) matter are ME & my God’s.
The rest (this includes everyone I just adore) has to take me as I am. This will be my lesson yet again. Transparency is way less agonising and way less time consuming.
Say no to fake!!!
And if this happens to now end up on facebook… you should know I put it there… by choice and on purpose.
