Public v. Private

It’s a hard topic on which to write. It is instinctual for humans to conceal their vulnerabilities, idiosyncrasies, and general weirdness from both intimate acquaintances and strangers. We walk around pretending to be normal and functioning, while living on the cusp of sanity itself. I imagine that every life is a story waiting to be told--that every life has the tension and uncertainty that fills the best literature. Although, I would like to exclude people who wear wool and gingham from this sweeping overgeneralization. I think people who wear wool and/or gingham regularly are the living embodiment of all that is Puritanical (in ideology, not reality).

I wish I could look into the lives of others “reality television show “ style, minus the scripts and the postproduction manufacturing of the “reality”. I would want to see how the “people pleaser” functions when there is no one to please. I would love to see how the dean or head of some department behaves when there are no heads to dean over. I would like to see the conservative have a moment of passion, or the liberal tear up in a moment of unlived nostalgia prompted by some 50’s sitcom.

Again, I’m becoming too holier than thou. My own public and private selves are nearly foreign to each other. There have been far too many instances where I would relive a public moment in my private persona and be devastated by the outcome. Too many times I was left with the taste of “what if” on my mind. I written and talked about it more than I care to admit. What if I had said the things that I was really thinking/feeling/believing/wanting/knowing to him/her/them? Why didn’t I reveal my true self? Why didn’t I tell the moron to seal off his mouth? Why didn’t I relate my experience that negated the beliefs of someone who could never know my reality?

Perhaps it is safer, though self-destructive in some way, to have these personas. I think if we were “real” with each other, we would all be hermits.