Saturday, August 19, 2017

All People.

I’ve been really enjoying these ‘Who Reads my Books’ posts and I hope that you have too. It brings home to me some thoughts about the anonymity and disconnection from personal interaction on the internet. Very often people don’t use their names or their faces when they post, but that is almost irrelevant. Even when they have a photograph and a name they either are, or are perceived to be, their internet personae. It’s a little bit like Orlandine splitting off her sub-personae – subminds of herself – so assign to discrete tasks.

The internet persona is often a bit of a caricature in which anger, virtue, sarcasm, politics and many other traits predominate. It’s not a real person but a sketch, a presentation, a façade. So much of what is real about them is excluded. Therefore, it’s nice to read these ‘Who Reads my Books’ short autobiographies, with pictures, because I’m seeing more of the real person.

They are people who have lived and are living. They have their worries (or not) about money, health, their partners and children. Some like to stomp up mountains, practise Jiu Jitsu or sit and smoke a good cigar. One is laboring around his new house, another is studying marine biology. A retired school teacher is here and we have a couple who work or have worked in aerospace, while a third is teaching people how not to be fat! One designs gardens and runs marathons, while another races motorbikes and flies drones. Many, I have discovered, work in IT. They are all interesting because, in the end, once you get to know people, they generally are. Though, I’ll be conceited here and say that’s especially the case with my readers!

They are all people; not a name, picture and a line of text to be dismissed. So, if you want to join them, DM me through either my Facebook or Twitter account, and get your autobiography started.    

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