Yesterday, when I contemplated doing a travel blog, mostly to keep my friends up to date on my travel experiences, I was telling myself it was much like keeping a diary that I just typed on my ipad. After thinking about it more, and posting my very first one, I've reconsidered the nature of the blog. Diaries are private, blogs are public. I noticed that I was being much more careful with language, punctuation, etc than if I were just scribbling away in a notebook. Good? Bad? Dunno, but certainly different in feeling, tone, perhaps subject matter. Anyone could read my blog--someone I didn't know. What might they think of me? What impression do I want to leave to posterity OUT THERE in cyberspace? And should I care?
The whole issue has caused me to think more about the various public personas we all use when dealing with the outside world. You have one face at work, one with your friends, one with acquaintances. Which is the real you? Does your best friend, husband, or child know the 'real' you"?" How private a person is in their heart-of-hearts. It all goes back to what makes being an authentic person. I may be nice to the lady at the check-out even when I'm in a bad mood--I may smile and say have a nice day even while I'm thinking that she was slow as molasses and needs to lose about 50 pounds. This is being polite in society to keep the wheels turning. I may tell my husband that his latest effort at sweeping the porch is fine and dandy, even while I plan to come back afterwards and do a little extra. This is keeping the lumps in the relationship smoothed out. We all do it on a daily basis to some degree or another. Does this invalidate who we are? Does it make us out as a liar or prevaricator? Who wants or needs to see my 'authentic self' and in what context? It seems more important that I know inside who I am, that I act from that interior place when it really matters ethically, and that I share my authentic self as much as is realistic at any given moment. My emotional self, my mental self, my spiritual self, and my physical self all have a certain validity, a certain persona, and they are all components of the entire package of me, but they aren't me.
When I'm dead and gone I want people to think well of me and my life, but whether or not they really knew me, or knew any of my myriad personas means nothing. My personality and the face I wear, the color of my skin, the beliefs I hold, the relationships I've forged in this lifetime are gone the minute I'm gone. They exist only as representative of the personality self, not my true spiritual self. To me, the concept of an authentic self--that well-bandied about Dr. Phil psychobabble term is more about the Capital P me - and only my soul knows that self because even my Small P self doesn't fully know that self. Just my little take on it, anyway. Let's close with a Dr. Phil quote:
"Be your authentic self. Your authentic self is who you are when you have no fear of judgment, or before the world starts pushing you around and telling you who you're supposed to be. Your fictional self is who you are when you have a social mask on to please everyone else. Give yourself permission to be your authentic self."
~ Dr. Phil
