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Thursday, December 03, 2009

To be heard and not seen

I miss the days of ICQ and random chat rooms.

All that anonymity was very comforting, a lot of times. Being able to say something at random, ramble on and then vanish without a trace, move on, with hardly a chance of bumping into the person you spilled the beans to, ever again ... reassuring. In my little bubble anyway.

And I don't intend 'beans' to mean salacious secrets that I do not want to voice before the world, attaching my identity to them. I mean random inconsequential things which I just want to say without having the burden of recognition tagged to them. I want to be able to simply throw my thoughts to the wind and let them go where they do, do their own thing but not come back to me. I want to be able to throw caution to the wind and simply voice.

I know, I have a blog. A (fairly) anonymous blog. Which serves the purpose quite well most days. But even then, it still has an identity. Here, I am DewdropDream. Who, in reality, could be anyone. But is still someone, tangible in some obscure way. Some days, I don't want that either.

A number of people who read this know me outside the virtual world. And just occasionally it annoys me. I tell myself it was a momentary lapse of judgement to have let them come here. I'm sorry, but I do feel that way. Heck, I'm sometimes very glad that not everybody who reads, comments. Those are the days I do not want to know who it is that I'm addressing. I do not want a name, face, link to tag you with. I don't want to know. I want to be able to just let go and finish it at that. I don't want to have it known that I was behind whatever random point it is. I like pretending there is no one around listening, reading, assimilating ... wanting to take it further.

Some days, I really and truly want to be nobody.

16 comments:

  1. you do a fairly good job of 'spilling the beans' even though i know who you are. on gtalk, i mean! :D

    but yes, i kinda know what you mean. you may not believe it.. but i've never used ICQ or any such chat app where i can chat anonymously.

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  2. I know what ya mean! I remember those times too!! Being anonymous. I feel that sometimes when people I know in real life read my blog. But hey, it's 2009. Someone's always watching!! I seem to have gotten used to it!

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  3. i totally know what you are talking about..even though only a v few people i know in real life read the blog, i still feel like this sometimes...i've never used any of those chat applications, so can't comment on that...but i can relate to it when you say that you blog anonymously, but still here you are someone.

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  4. Divyani7:40 PM

    Can You ans 1 ques - Why do all of us need to 'say' 'write' or 'express' our darkest of the desires or may be innermost fantasies or it can be in your very own words spill the beans by being anonymous?? Do a human being wants to detach with his identity or is it that his identity dont relate with what is he???

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  5. I agree! Some days, I just want to shut my blog and start writing my 'diary' again!

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  6. Like Rayshma, I actually have never done anonymous chatting (including chat rooms on yahoo). So I am fairly anonymous on my blog.

    But knowing that some of my family may read my blog, puts a whole new level of self-censorship on my writing. Friends, not so much, acquaint. sometimes, but cousins, you gotta be afraid of them. ;)

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  7. Ahhh know what you mean. V recently spilled the beans about my blog to some friends and I could've kicked him. I had to go back and censor every post. But I've realised now that if you want an audience, anonymity is almost impossible.

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  8. Hugs!
    Totally get what you're trying to say!

    Nice template :)

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  9. wanted to add...
    i never felt the need to keep my blog anonymous tho. it was always a part of me.. my identity.. a diff aspect at times, but still quintessentially me.
    but yes, the day my immediate family starts reading the blog *or so i find out*, i will wrap it up. and probably delete it.

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  10. naice template. I laikes!

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  11. Stumbled across your blog..
    liked your writeups
    __


    well..I hope you have tried IRC..its still anonymous..

    nyway..what ever we do..someone is always watching us..

    for me blog is a therapy

    internet void()
    {
    hello world;
    }

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  12. Catty: Duh! Of course I'd be spilling beans to you :D And I don't think you missed anything by not being on ICQ and stuff :)

    RWS: I hate this 'big brother is watching' crap that the new millenium has brought. Whatever happened to privacy? Heck, whatever happening to minding one's own business, tact and general nicety?! I'm not used to it and I refuse to get used to it either. The world can go take a hike off a high cliff, in my very humble opinion.

    Titaxy: You know, I was rather expecting people to be all 'Well why on earth do you bother blogging then?' but I'm glad there are people out there who get what I'm saying :)

    Divyani: Right, I'm probably going to make a mini post out of this, here. Hi, btw. So ... you haven't left a link with that comment, which is curious considering you're asking why people want anonymity. Curious because you're using anonymity and my guess is your reason answers your query. It could simply be the case that you don't blog or didn't want to share an email id that was identifying. Either way, you've chosen to not attach anything that would define you and I guess a lot of times that is all there is to it. One has a choice to remain unidentified and it's comforting ... it helps leave things as non-events and random occurrences instead of attaching definition to them. There is comfort and assurance in chaos. In not having to find meaning and attach meaning to everything one says or does. I don't think it has anything to do with how comfortable anyone is with themselves ... it's simply the freedom to be something else for a little while by not being the thing you are. Rather, freedom from being who you are, no matter how fabulous that is. Change, it's good.

    D: God, me too! Some days ...

    Amey: Oh you haven't missed out on anything, believe me :) I don't really have a problem with self-censorship ... just ... some days you want to be like the wind, there but invisible :) I'm not really worried about friends and cousins ... it's easier to tell them off if they bother you ... it's the auntijis and unclejis ... the kind you don't really have anything to say to but have to be polite and patiently make small talk with, who insist on asking you personal questions. Maybe I ought to a Mr. Goon and give them the ol 'Interferin' with the law!' dialogue. Oh and I picked up 'And Another Thing', so thank you :)

    La vida loca: That is an apt answer a lot of times! :) Thank you *hug*

    The Bride: In my case I have to give myself a mental kick up the rear for letting spill the beans about a blog. Gah. This is the peculiar thing about blogging. You start out and you want people to be reading you ... but somewhere down the line it starts getting a bit oppressive and you crave anonymity. There's a constant battle between writing just because you want to and writing for an audience because you have one.

    Pixie: Thank you :) *hug*

    Catty: This blog is part of my identity too. I just don't want to talk about it. Definitely not to people who aren't in the inner circle. That's all. I hope to god your immediate family doesn't find your blog then! Personally, I wouldn't mind SOME of my immediate family coming by here ... maybe just as long as I knew about it.

    Purnima: Thankee :)

    Sorcerer: Thank you! Also Hello! and welcome :) I wouldn;t bother trying IRC anymore ... other than not having time to spare for it, I think all of us have had enough 'frandsheep' attempts made on u to be wary of putting ourselves in the line of such attempts deliberately. And yeah, that's very true of this decade ... someone's always watching us. Guess we ought to be entertaining then, best we can do right? Blogging as therapy ... it is, occasionally.

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  13. I bet Tiger Woods could do with a little bit of anonymity right about now.

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  14. Hi Dewdrop! Lovely blog you have here... Will read through more of it at leisure. For now, just wanted to comment on this post.

    I miss ICQ! Such fun it used to be. That and the Rediff chat rooms of 98-99 (Smoke-filled cafe etc). I've had some really good intellectually stimulating conversations with people that did not even bother with crap like "What's your ASL?" Grrrrr... I would always answer those ones with 84/F/Bhopal or some such!

    Agree with the anonymity issue as well... but as time goes by it gets tougher. That's because I've met such wonderful fellow bloggers who have now become friends. It's like a catch 22 situation. You want to be read and understood without being known.

    Peace and Love!

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  15. The Cloudcutter: Hello! Good to have you here :) Oh smoke-filled internet cafes ... such a common memory that is :) And 'ASL' ... haha!

    I don't have an issue with people I have come to know through the blog ... been lucky enough to make some wonderful friends that way too. It's more the other way around, people you've known earlier who end up reading you here ... that isn't the best thing to happen sometimes.

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