http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/17/how-to-live-without-irony/?_r=0
This article struck me. I am not a hipster (if such a thing still exists). I too determinedly follow my own path. I desire two things, to drown in the experience of authentic living- (knowledge, experience, love)- and to give. I search for meaningful experiences and connections (as we all must), I joyfully and unashamedly seek, and I obstinately refuse to 'dodge responsibility' for any of my choices or desires. But even so, I identify with this idea of hiding in public. It is something I struggle with terribly. And I am undeniably subject to its’ consequential ‘several stages of self-scrutiny’. I think we all are to one degree or another. I think the 'irony' the author speaks of is heavily symptomatic of, and a reaction to, the incessant and self-imposed pressure of public scrutiny manifest in social media. How does one reconcile privacy, honesty and humanity with selective exhibitionism, irrevocability and physical disconnect? I strive for a free spirit and truth in everything, then clothe myself for uncensored, inflexible, perpetual, and entirely subjective (thus false? or true? for whom?) display- does this not seem perverse? But what do I reveal? Nothing. By omission. But the conciousness of what I hide, no matter how honest I strive to be, makes me (feel) artificial. Simply in the medium and in the choice of what we omit there is machination. Yet this is how we live, it is how we socialize. How agonizingly boring! And it does not let up, not even when we sleep. I am a very private person, and I dislike artificiality, but what I especially cannot abide is that which I perceive as dishonest in myself. But what might suit me in one mood, will not in another. This all leads to paralizing self-scrutiny. In this respect I feel paralized by ‘irony’. I don’t know how to reconcile myself with this. So here I reveal myself naked, but for a moment.
This article struck me. I am not a hipster (if such a thing still exists). I too determinedly follow my own path. I desire two things, to drown in the experience of authentic living- (knowledge, experience, love)- and to give. I search for meaningful experiences and connections (as we all must), I joyfully and unashamedly seek, and I obstinately refuse to 'dodge responsibility' for any of my choices or desires. But even so, I identify with this idea of hiding in public. It is something I struggle with terribly. And I am undeniably subject to its’ consequential ‘several stages of self-scrutiny’. I think we all are to one degree or another. I think the 'irony' the author speaks of is heavily symptomatic of, and a reaction to, the incessant and self-imposed pressure of public scrutiny manifest in social media. How does one reconcile privacy, honesty and humanity with selective exhibitionism, irrevocability and physical disconnect? I strive for a free spirit and truth in everything, then clothe myself for uncensored, inflexible, perpetual, and entirely subjective (thus false? or true? for whom?) display- does this not seem perverse? But what do I reveal? Nothing. By omission. But the conciousness of what I hide, no matter how honest I strive to be, makes me (feel) artificial. Simply in the medium and in the choice of what we omit there is machination. Yet this is how we live, it is how we socialize. How agonizingly boring! And it does not let up, not even when we sleep. I am a very private person, and I dislike artificiality, but what I especially cannot abide is that which I perceive as dishonest in myself. But what might suit me in one mood, will not in another. This all leads to paralizing self-scrutiny. In this respect I feel paralized by ‘irony’. I don’t know how to reconcile myself with this. So here I reveal myself naked, but for a moment.
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