Coming out on tumblr
I originally created this blog to be “private.” A keepsake for my own thoughts and internalized-gone-to-the-tubmlr-verse kind of thing. As a part of the tumblr mass, it is comforting and intriguing to see the number of “my private thoughts” “things I want to share with ‘the world’ and not the people who ‘know’ me” kind of blogs. I think this says something about how our public selves differ from our online selves versus our true selves (if we can even put a thumb on whatever that is).
What is the discomfort in sharing openly and transparently? I wish this discomfort could melt into a pit of ‘don’t return to sender.’ How different would the world be if we weren’t capable of filtering? <I just filtered the next sentence I originally typed here>
So now that my blog is “out” to friends who I interact with on a regular basis, I already notice a check at what I choose to blog or re-blog. This isn’t a ‘for better or worse’ kind of thing - just something I am noticing in my own thought process.
I was once told about a psychological phenomena which essentially said we tend to exaggerate or embellish ourselves to others (in person - I would extend this to our online selves in general, too). I remember speaking up in the large lecture hall of the social psychology course (something I rarely did in those days) and posing a question. The question was something like “if our tendency is to exaggerate ourselves or to step outside who we are when we meet someone, and we can assume the other is doing the same thing, is it possible to truly know someone else?” Again, why the filter? What is holding us back, other than ourselves? What is at stake?
