Facades

My vantage point was envious. I rode on top of the double decker bus home earlier this week, in the front row no less, which gave me yet another different perspective from the usual ride. I was able to see over the neatly trimmed hedges which, from the top view, gave way to scattered tools, discarded lawn toys, semi-abandoned car parts and other unkempt furniture.

It made me wonder: What do we hide behind our trendy URL's, slick business cards and fancy blogger templates? Scattered thoughts, discarded ideas, semi-abandoned dreams and other unkempt html code... and that's just from my perspective.

I recently was with a group of individuals on the road back to recovery after a traumatic accident, most of them from MVA's. Apart they all seemed 'normal', whatever our societal norms define that as; well kept, good jobs, eloquent speech. Together it was a different story. With a relative understanding of each others injuries they were all in a unique place to filter through each others facades and see what really was behind the hedge - even at their first time meeting each other... and everybody was cool with that. All that time and energy wasted putting up a front was would have been just that in any other setting - wasted time.

After some thought I came to an understanding why. The real tipping point between this and other interactions was the commonality and awareness of each other from primal base of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. The end result was refreshing - discussions were vibrant, fuelled by real interest without the regular distortions or worrying about image. "How are you?" was asked, and meant. It did, unfortunately, make for some long winded responses...

So fellow bloggers, it made me wonder - what's hiding behind your template? Or is it all hanging out there for us to see? How many of our long rooted societal theories will need a third dimension added for digital facades? With our digital personality easily googled where would Maslow say it all fits?

I'm not sure but I suspect blogging is the in-between of publishing things you tell your co-workers and thoughts you wouldn't even tell your best friend. With pseudo anonymity we can craft text and expose inner feelings and thoughts, all while doing it under the pretext of building a digital community we know we will never have to meet if we don't want to.

Maybe blogging is as good as it gets? is the random thought that keeps coming back to me.

I say that as I, ironically, write aononmously. I guess that makes me a social experiment in the making.

So, now I formally ask: What is behind your template?