It’s been a long time since I last published a blog I’ve written. That doesn’t mean to say I haven’t written any, but they’ll likely never see the light of day. Most of them are musings best kept in personal memoir form, rather than plastered over social media. Time was, when you needed to vent personal issues and feelings, it ended up in handwritten form locked away in a bedside table or in an expensive 10p per text conversation. Cue the thoughts of American teenage girls scalding their younger brothers for sneaking into their rooms and embarrassing them by reading about ‘Brad’ or ‘Chet’…. Ok perhaps not that twee, but nonetheless you get the idea.

The advent of Social Media has changed the way we interact irreversibly. It has supported me with a form of employment in one way or another for the past 5-6 years and from my earliest dealings with it as a snot-nosed 19 year old on ‘MySpace’ in 2007 to now, a lot has changed. A lot has remained the same however. Now more than ever, people recreate themselves online in a way they want to be perceived. They find the right angle to shoot the photograph, the right filter to highlight their best features and use language consistent with the culture they want to be associated with. Everyone who engages in Social Media does it, myself included. No matter how individual you are, you’re just the same as everyone else in your attempts to be seen in your best possible light.

There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s why we buy certain types of clothes, wear specific make up and build our personalities making friends. But one thing I find really very interesting is this idea of perception. How someone sees the world. More importantly, how individuals see each other. Misinterpretation is a social nightmare. For someone to create the vision of themselves (digitally or otherwise) and for someone to then misunderstand what they are trying to achieve is often the cause of great embarrassment. The last great bastion of personality is guarded by the confines of someone’s mind. Misinterpretation can be denied by the sharp tongue with a refuting statement and explanation. ‘No, that’s totally not what I meant’ or ‘I was actually doing this, but thanks anyway’ are throwaway comments that close down people who get the wrong end of the stick. How valid those statements are can often be dubious at best.

The most fascinating extension of this for me is how I perceive people I’ve known for a long time. The difference between what I know about someone from years of observation to the actual beating heart and thinking brain of that individual.

Think about it.

What you know about me as a person is compiled from a record of interactions with me over the course of the time we’ve known each other. If you’re like me when thinking of others, you’ve unconsciously created a profile of the sort of person I am, what I like and what I don’t, things I’m likely to say and perhaps not… people I’m prepared to tolerate and those who I’d sooner see lost on the back of a milk carton. You get the picture.

Then consider the person I am inside. The person only I know, if anyone could ever know. The person based on solely on my subjective experiences, life lessons and character building in over 30 years on this planet. Speaking purely for myself I try to be as honest as I can, short of spilling the human condition on every soul I meet… which could get messy. The only darkness in my personality has been seen by those closest to me during my weaker moments. I’m not above saying I’ve been a complete asshole to people in the past. It’s not unlikely that it’ll happen again at some point (insert famous lyric by Rag’n’Bone Man where appropriate)… There were times when I was young man that goading people to get a reaction was fun, even a sport in pissing people off. Talk to my friends from when I was 21-25, they’ll tell you. That part of me died thank god, but he was around for long enough for me to see the damage it caused. It doesn’t taste great when you swallow that shit yourself, not matter how far away you run from it.

What fascinates me is that this perception/reality thing is true of everyone I know, closely or casually. It’s only when situations force you to take stock do you begin to question whether your observations are accurate to the true individual. Was this perception based on what you wanted that person to be (your projection), what they wanted you to see them as (their projection) or who they actually are? I feel in certain cases in my life I’ve had to reevaluate my overall perception very deeply to make important decisions. It’s never easy to pry open that box and objectively work things out… and when it’s open for me it’s usually quite a big old task of getting it all back in there!

I recently took a trip down memory lane on social media, looked at my Facebook from around 2009-now, as well as my Instagram of the last two years. So many things have changed in that time. Friends have come and gone, relationships have left their marks, jobs steadily improved and in truth… I’ve grown up. I’ll still make mistakes, but I’ve learnt something from every time I’ve had my heart broken or my integrity questioned. Time hop is always a nice reminder of a different time, looking at when I thought it was useful to pour my heart out in cryptic, passive aggressive messages directed overtly at no one specifically. Some would say that’s what I’m doing now with this very blog, but I’m not trying to make a statement about anyone in particular. I’m simply highlighting the divide between what someone sees, how they interpret that information and what the information was intended to represent.

People will perceive this how they want to and draw their own conclusions, even if I make it plain what I’m attempting to convey. All I really want in life is to find a way to link my perception with reality, if there is such a steady, level thing as true reality! I know mine, do you know yours? I suppose more to the point, are you willing to share it with everyone else?

 

Only Love.