Anonymity brings out our real selves

Anonymity brings out our real selves

The greatest irony — and tragedy — of human nature is that to be your real self, you have to be someone no one can recognise

    I’VE looked at many women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times. God knows I do this, and forgives me.” Former American President Jimmy Carter had said this in what appears to be an extremely brave moment of unflinching honesty.
    No one, and I repeat no one, has escaped adultery. To my mind there are only two kinds of people — the ones who would indulge in adultery, and the others, who would think of adultery but not indulge in it; but there is no third kind, the ones you’d like to believe are people who neither think nor commit adultery. If anyone were to say that he or she has never ever thought of someone else while they have been with another, I would say, tell that to the marines! Complete balderdash!
    We are two people, all of us. One that the world knows, and the other that we keep to ourselves, locked and closeted with access only given to our minds. No one dare enter.
    Is this rant about adultery then? No it’s not. The above take on adultery is only a way of expressing the duplicity that exists within all of us. This duplicity is also what brings me to the principle that I would like to share today: it’s only anonymity that brings out our real selves.
    On a microblogging site, I have seen the strangest aliases for people, and these aliases take it upon themselves to comment freely, rudely, hurtfully, and even downright sadistically to people and their situations. Yet what is important here is that they need the cloak of anonymity to say all those terrible things. They would never dare to say the things without being invisible. Meanness is too cowardly to stem from the person the world knows. It has to be delivered in stealth.
    And yet the most common use of anonymity is the internet and sex sites, which to my mind is the cleverest device invented by man. You can be who you want to be, and be really who you are!
    Fifty Shades of Grey is a bland book about pseudo sadomasochism but it’s successful because it dares to talk about the “untalkable” on the world forum. This is rare. Most of the time, anonymity is still the preferred way to go about it. You see, it is really very simple. All you have to do is make up an alias and surf the most sinful websites that your heart desires. Chat with other aliases and indulge in the kind of role-play that your husband, your society or for that matter even the ‘social’ you might not allow. You are free in this space, free of the person that the world knows.
    In essence, what it means is that to be your real self, you have to be someone no one can recognise. To let your honest and true desires surface, you have to pretend to be someone that you are not. To be you, you simply cannot be you. It’s tragic and quite ironical.
    What has the world turned us into? Why are people constantly afraid of being judged for who they are? In every person, there exists that other person who wants to be free. And the hypocritical person who judges him is always somebody else. Oh, for crying out loud, what a complex web we weave. All of us are two people. All of us hiding from others. All of us judging the other. Can this get more muddled? I doubt it.
Alas! It’s too late to rewrite the dictum of society. It’s the rare person who dares, and goes against the dictum. For the rest, there is anonymity, and it seems to be the only way to be. Have fun then, but don’t get caught!
Bhatt is a director, producer & screenwriter
The opinions expressed in this column are
the personal views of the writer