Mediate Me

Hi everybody,

My name is Ross and in addition to being an editor at WIE, I'm a total neophyte when it comes to blogging, podding, threading, poking, prodding, profiling, and otherwise self-representing up here on this ever-amazing and rapidly changing medium known as the internet.

When I joined zaadz, i found myself oddly disconcerted. Facing across the empty pixels of my screen into the blank white canvas of my profile, I realized that I was absolutely, unprecedentedly free to represent myself any old way I wanted to. Of course, in life you can always say what you want to about yourself, revise history, change your style and become a hippie or Goth or neo-emo-Rasta or whatever, but I mean up here on the internet you can really fake things. I mean, who’s going to know the difference? It’s a fully constructed world. You don’t know my skin tone (is that picture really me?). You don’t know my eating habits. You don’t know whether I actually play trombone on Saturdays on the sidewalk by the Berkshire Museum or if I just say I do. All you know is what I give you, and that is one tantalizing carrot indeed to dangle in front of one’s more narcissistic side…

Ahhhhh, I thought to myself as I wrote “about me.” This is great. But the onrushing circular commentary of self-reflective self-creation seemed to have a momentum all its own. No, that’s not quite right, it makes me seem awfully square… That’s a little pretentious dude, gotta sound more sincere… Wait, don’t be so stiff, better add a little humor in there…

Perhaps one gets used to this kind of thing after a while. But as a first timer yet to be desensitized to the strange thrills of representational carte blanche, I found the whole phenomenon pretty interesting. And thought (in a flash of doubly self-reflexive genius) why not start a thread about it? Because the thing is, this eerie double bind has actually kept me from joining internet forums in the past: On the one hand, I’m never going to like how I look, so why try? It’s not going to be the ‘real’ me, and I’m just not comfortable with that. On the other hand, I’m uncomfortably aware of how eager I am to try out different selves, to smooth over all my blemishes and embarrassing contradictions with a kind of photoshopping power one can only approximate in one’s offline life, where there’s only so much wool you can pull over anyone’s eyes before they see through the façade and bust your chops.

So what’s a hyper self-conscious twenty-first century Renaissance man to do? (That line kills me. Don’t you appreciate the irony? I had to leave it in even though just as the last keystrokes were stroked I immediately started fretting over how you might read it. I’m ironically representing myself in a post about the ironies of self-representation! Then explaining it. Then explaining my awareness of the explanation. This is the kind of thing that drives self-respecting college students to drop out.)

I have a few ideas about how one might answer that question but they’re pretty tentative, and I’d love to get a dialogue going. My friend Maura wrote about this whole phenomenon in the magazine a while back, in her review of a book called Mediated by Thomas de Zengotita. He’s written a piece or two for us as well and there’s also an interview with him up on WIE Unbound.

Glad to be here and glad to have the chance to engage with everyone…

Ross

Re: Mediate Me

Dear Ross,

Thank you so much for being my teacher. I really find your remarks and your links hit home deep.

1) Cyber-personae: I have been struggling with this issue personally the most since 1998 when I launched myself into the world of online discussion groups. At that time, I began to create and join forums, and noticed how I was consciously developing this “better than possible” version of myself online. I'd read my words, and they would sound fake. I'd feel guilty when people responded positively to me - I'd think, “If you knew what I was really like…”

I haven't resolved it yet, and don't know if I ever will. However, I have noticed a lot of things over the past 8 years or so.

One is that this cyber self  can draw people's reactivity. I remember years ago when I got a poison pen e-mail from someone on the first group i'd created, the one I still feel is my “baby”. At that time, I was very sensitive. Now, three years on the church board and two more much worse poison pen letters have given me the emotional hide of the proverbial elephant! Actually, I'm not invulnerable. More on that later.

Another is that very often I show what I believe is the best of myself, keeping the not-so-admirable for my real-time contacts. Yet if you know someone online enough in enough different discussion groups, who that one “really” is starts to leak through the carefully drawn facade or persona.

One thing my mentor often says in his sermons is that a worst fear many of us have is “they are going to find me out”. Creating a blog and/or cyber-persona means to ride the wave of this fear and sometimes wipe out spectacularly as you deal with people's reactivity, or worse, when people respond to the “pure and beautiful” cyber-persona as if it is who you are. I have to keep reminding people, “Hey, I'm not as good/evolved/spiritual as this. The picture you see of me on my blog was carefully chosen. I'm not usually that cute…” und so weiter (et cetera).

Even as I do this explaining in my various groups, I'm aware it could be interpreted as humility, which is not a quality I have in great supply! Rather, it's just fact.

But what is fact, what is fiction, and what is a blend of the two? Of course, tall is hyper-subjectivism. We know from quantum physics that objectivity is a fiction we have to discard whenever we need to move beyond Newtonian physics.

2) Numbing out: I have found the mass numbing of the conscience and consciousness extremely disturbing, which is one of the reasons I haven't watched television for most of the past 20 years, except for now and then at someone's house. I look at the generations X, next and ?? which have been consumed by TV, pop culture, gaming, text-messaging, cell-phoning u.s.w. I shudder, and fear. My 16 year old son has been living mostly with his dad and their TV for the past few years, and whose inner world is populated by movies, rap, gangstahs, etc. His inner world has always been disturbingly dark, even when he was a little guy. Back then he would play war with his lego, fight with his peers, and draw dark pictures. Up till recently he always needed to sleep with the light on, because of the monsters in his imagination… He affects a nonchalance I find very disturbing about people being blown up on a large scale in the movies and games he loves. I remember with sadness a small boy who once cried over a baby squirrel we had to give away to be cared for by someone who could raise it.

3) My sensitivity: If anything, I am getting more sensitive in some ways as time goes by. I am crying now, because of the intensity of thinking of my son, going through his difficult time. I tear up listening to the news. I cry over books, especially children's books, like the House of Sixty Fathers I read yesterday while waiting for clients at work. I cry listening to beautiful music. Of course, movies too. When I listen to someone sharing deep pain, I have to fight back the tears, so I don't put salt in their wounds.

And yes, I can be hurt by people. Thursday morning I called up someone I had considered a friend, and discovered she was still angry at me because I had let her down months ago when she was seriously ill and I was depressed. She thought I must have some dark ulterior motive for calling her now from time to time to see how she was doing. That hurt so much that I have not yet dared to open her e-mail sent later that morning. I have not dared to open a mail a zaadster sent to me yesterday privately, because the subject line looked like the person was very angry at me. I was nervous to open another message that turned out to be a simple, warm invitation to be friends…

Sorry. A very long answer. You can see how “live” this is for me this week!

Again, thanks for teaching me. Thanks for being an editor here. This is a good community, a place to share, love and grow.

Namaste,

Nicole

Re: Mediate Me

Hi Ross

My thoughts on this are that however we present ourselves in face to face interactions or in cyberspace is ultimately just a game.

The more I stay centred in this remembrance the more I can relax and enjoy the play.

I've noticed no matter what I do some people love me and others not so much. :)

I generally prefer face to face as this leaves less space for misunderstandings we humans seem to be quite prone to, but everything has it's place.

I enjoy authenticity the most, cause real life is the best storey I've heard so far.
Enjoy the play.

Love
Shanti

Re: Mediate Me

Ross: It’s not going to be the ‘real’ me, and I’m just not comfortable with that. On the other hand, I’m uncomfortably aware of how eager I am to try out different selves, to smooth over all my blemishes and embarrassing contradictions…

I went through the same struggle.  The fact is none of this can be “me”.  There is no “me”.  A common denominator of Zaadz is this notion that ego is but a construct.

But because this is a community we are going to have to create another “ego” to communicate to others.  Do we create an ideal?  Or do we go with what we think is an honest representation of our selves?


                                                          And so…

You bring up Thomas de Zengotita.  He has a theory about videogames.  He talks about the inherent narcissism in being both the main character and the spectator.

Internet discussion groups fall into the same sort of psychology.  We put out these posts hoping to have replies.  I would guess that you are very gratified at this moment that I am responding to your post.  Its a form of bolstering the ego.

And so often in these sorts of discussions on the Usenet the posts can degenerate in ad hominum attacks and childish in fighting as people protect their turf.

However in defense of what I have seen on Zaadz much of Zengotita's theory breaks down.  People here tend to be operating from a greater mind (or higher consciousness?)  Simply by being aware of the process of ego identification, ego identification breaks down.

Thus by simply understanding that our virtual avatar is but a limited display of who we are, we become something greater.

s.

Re: Mediate Me

Thanks for responding guys! I’m sorry it took me so long to get back up here—the busy life of a WIE editor and the slow synapses of a forum newbie. But you all got me thinking…

“What is fact, what is fiction, and what is a blend of the two? Of course, all is hyper-subjectivism. We know from quantum physics that objectivity is a fiction we have to discard…”

Nicole, it was great to read your post about cyber personas, and your question of subjectivity vs. objectivity. I for one hope objectivity is not a total fiction! As all-pervasive and endlessly circular as these halls of subjective self-preoccupation seem at times from the inside, I do think there has to be another option. My own experience on the spiritual path at least tells me that the flip side of the hyper-mediated self (in a spiritual context you can probably call this the ego) is, simply, authenticity.

And what, pray tell, is that? Even mentioning that satanically oppressive word is not exactly your safest bet these days—at least not in your friendly neighborhood university town, with its intellectual climate most likely infected by postmodernism’s own endlessly relativistic, hyper-subjective germs. Who the f _ _ _ are you to tell me what authenticity is, you… you…!? And faster than you can say “Okay, okay, I honor your truth! I honor your truth!!!” folks are getting all whipped up at the presumption that anyone else but them has any right to say anything that might apply to them, and so on and so forth ad infinitum. Yet the question of authenticity might be one of the most important—and most subtle—questions we have to reckon with if we’re ever going to get anywhere together. What is it? How does one develop it? How do you even know it when you see it?

I was thinking too that the quantum thing is notoriously slippery and may not necessarily apply here. Although quantum physics tells us that you might not be able to poke your finger at an electron and pin it down mid-orbit, I think basic human physics says that you can certainly point at me and pin me down—at least if I let you. I am actually in here somewhere, no matter how many representational magic tricks I might spring on you or how convincingly I might spring them. And I guess you could say the reason I’m really interested in mediation, and the alarming strength of my own motive to mediate myself so that you (and more importantly, I) like the image that you see, is that it seems to be such a powerful obstacle to authenticity.

Lots more to say and I only got to the first post, but I’ll leave it at that for now and be back soon…

Re: Mediate Me

'm not really that knoweldgeable about all this deep philosophical stuff. More of a dabbler really, but…

…personally, I don't think quantum mechanics applies in a straight forward fashion. Quantum mechanics is a (primitive) theory on how the material world responds to consciousness. The observer effect, unlimited potental until observed, and all that stuff. But other than moving towards the scientific stipulation of an “interface” (the interface?) between consciousness and matter (i.e., As above in consciousness, so below in matter), quantum mechanics cannot really be appled to your (I)dentity because that is, in my opinion, something seperate from matter. 

At least this is how it works “in theory”.

In practice, things get complicated and it is not all black and white. The fact that you (and by you I mean the “I” sitting there in that chair reading these words) are incarnated in a physical body means that (more or less) you will become an aspect of the physical world. In the words of the spiritual geeks, you adopt an ego and this ego, because it is formed out of the physical matter of your brain, will become subject to quantum mechanics and all that stuff.  The more you are  “absorbed”  in the physical world, the more you “forget” your  source in consciousness, the more you mistake the body/mind for your self, the we may say you are trapped in the illusions of maya and subject to the limitations of matter.

But anyway, on objectivity, when I was in school, postmodernists gave me serious heartburn which bordered on indigestion and nausea.  Whenever the pomo's entered the debate field, I always used the example of a car crash to challenge their viewpoint.

YOu know the example.

Everybody agrees.

If a car crashes and it is viewed by twelve different bystanders from twelve different perspectives, they will all have a different point of view.

Proof.

Subjectivity and the death of authority.

But I always said, yes, that's true. twelve different perspectives but they all agree on one thing which is that a car crashed. Nobody says a plane crashed, nobody says a bomb blew up, nobody says Santa's sleigh took a tumble. They all agree on the core common truth and they will defend that truth. If somebody came up to them trying to tell them that a plane had crashed, they would almost certainly define the “somebody” as a raving lunatic.

As for cyberpersonalities, that's just play and if we want to theorize allthat identity stuff, we need to at least locate it within a rubric of play. This way we won't be tempted to make a theory of personality or (god forbid) a theory of spiriuality out of it.

 My children play all the time with their identities – pretending they are princesses or dragons or monsters.  Beneath all the play though I still know their names,  I still recognize their personalities, and I still love who they are.

namaste

ms

Re: Mediate Me

Dear Ross and Michael,

As one who is greatly interested yet still has a lot to learn about quantum physics and all its corollories in a myriad applications and fields, I'd venture to say, yes, objectivity as understood in the classical sense is impossible. This is a basic reality of a quantum universe, where the observer affects what is being observed, whether you're talking about Shroedinger and his cat or simply, say, in my field, the Kumon instructor observing a child working or observing a child's progress. Both the fact that observation is going on and the many different factors the observer brings to the process change the process and the observed.

There's a lot of excellent material out there on all this, so I won't bore you further, in case this doesn't really interest you.

Namaste,

Nicole

Re: Mediate Me

Admitadely I have a lot to learn, but I”m not sure that this follows.  Just because you can affect what you observe, doesn't mean you can objectivity know the object.  I can effect my computer. I can smash it to bits if I want to, but its still a computer. Its still an object and everybody can agree on that.

And ya, the observer changes an object but that doesn't make the world subject. It just makes the world operable. What we are talking about at the quantum level is not lack of an object but on the operability of the object which is, in this case, the very substructure of the universe.

For me the insight of quantum mechanics is that we are not a “observer” of creation. We are participant. What we do impacts creation at the most fundamental levels.

Re: Mediate Me

greetings from most high,

i want to think  about this.  the observer affects the observed . We are the observers and the observed .we are looking at ourselves and we are both the subject and object. What is enlightenment ?in the light mean. Light travels at a constant it is not affect by the relative position of the observer. as in light beings we have radient energy not reflective  relaitive position.we travel at the speed of light. we're still and were moving .Still in consistence always here and yet moving .could never be dicovered only uncovered.coming from the singularity of action central.I would think that the purpose of enlightenment is to enlighten,The object is the subject and the subject is all of us  and all of this and all of that .

Re: Mediate Me

 “Am I ” asks the I Am to the all Ignorance of it's reflection known.
Oh the quest I on answer and In on and of the viod and a nothing one becomes the answer for sum of  any is thing question and a one this is created and answer for the every that of the each many and as came to be and again becoming and as a me and a you and the us fuss we all and of the silent call and of one to One and heard already so different the same and again as more is filled with existence less and related time and space shifts.
Now I wonder what was the piont of observers subject and subjects observer.???
Hmmm………

Re: Mediate Me

What is enlightenment?

Enlightenment is a process of unfolding the divinity within

Re: Mediate Me

Dear Michael,

Forgive me if I seemed to be saying there is no object, though as we “know” from the Matrix, “There is no spoon”. :) What I was actually trying to say was we can't be objective, the classical concept of an independent observer over here in a box looking at the object over there in another box, unaffected by the observation and entirely available to the observer's scrutiny without bias or any other subjective elements on the part of the observer.

Namaste,

Nicole

Re: Mediate Me

Agreed. Absolutely!
 
Though this doesn't mean that  we cannot reach agreement about things or that the object cannot act upon observer in similiar (if not identical) fashion or that there are not common  (or absolute) truths.

Hmm.

anybody have a glass of water, somebody left this blue pill here

:-)