On Authenticity

One of the things I dislike about publishing my thoughts on the Internet is just that you either open yourself up to too much scrutiny or you run the risk of presenting a very skewed portion of the puzzle.  I am a person who craves to be understood, but there is a lot of darkness in my soul and I fear rejection, so I want to hide my true self as well.  Facebook invites us to share with our friends, but what is it that we'd actually share with our "friends?"  I don't think there is anything necessarily immediately illegitimate about expanding our social base to 100s of people, 100s more than would "naturally" be the case, but you must be a very brave human to speak as you would to a few close friends to a giant pool of people. Sure, filter things down, but then it becomes a matter of classifying the people you know, and facing the big question: who cares about your innermost self and who do you just WISH cared?

And then there's the question - is it possible to be authentic, EVER? Well, for one thing, updating to a website is one sided, and the fact is, people will not necessarily even understand your meaning, nor may you understand their true intent in any feedback or replies.  All communication is a negotiation, and the things we decide to communicate might be SELF DECEPTIONS to start!  OH MY GOD, it's so convoluted, I can't even begin to deal.

But the other option, the silence...  This does not appeal to me either.  I'm not the end all be all of wisdom, but I think my voice can carry messages that matter to other humans.  I think I can move and stir and heal and inspire.  I think I can cause someone to pause and reflect, or have a laugh, or feel less alone.  I have to personally find the balance between over and under exposure, between packaging a product and presenting a breathing, bleeding human being.  I need to find my voice, and learn to sing, and I want it to be an honest song.