Anonymity

A friend of mine emailed me earlier today to let me know of a nun who was going to be presenting on the history of women in the Church. One of the women she was going to touch on was Julian of Norwich, whose Revelations of Divine Love was the subject of my dissertation, so I thought I'd check it out. It ended up being quite an informal meeting at the St. Jude's Catholic Worker House (a homeless shelter and soup kitchen). Anyway, I showed up and walked into the meeting late because I had a hard time finding the place. The nun, when I walked in, paused in her talk and greeted me, "Hello, who are you?" to which I replied "I'm Ben" as if she was expecting me. She smiled kindly, and said, "Well, I'm Agnes. Nice to meet you."

I guess because of the greeting, I had lost my anonymity somewhat, but I still had that moment where not a person in the room really knew a thing about me, and they must have wondered, "Where did this guy come from?" Despite the feelings of awkwardness that often accompany being in the presence of people who don't know a thing about you except your first name, I briefly savor that moment as I try to guess what they assume about me. At the same time, I yearn to let everyone know that there is a reason why I'm here, that I have something to contribute other than to be that mystifying character who appears out of the blue. Meanwhile, I like to guess at the history of other people, what their personalities are like, what role they play in the group.

A particularly humorous thing happened a couple weeks ago when I walked into a Unitarian-Universalist meeting the week before I was to present there. I wanted to get a feel for what the service was like so that I knew how to direct my presentation. I had walked in late to this event also (but for more legitimate reasons than getting lost) so I had no opportunity to introduce myself. At the end of the meeting, the lady who kind of heads things up started announcing that there would be a service the following week. "A young man named Ben Moreland will be presenting. He went to study in England, had grown up in an evangelical church, and through his time abroad had had a change in many of his beliefs." I sat there with my brother and sister smiling coyly, wondering when I should introduce myself. Eventually, at my sister's urging, I announced who I was, breaking my anonymity, and providing a bit of a surprise to the people who were gathered.

It seemed odd to have someone talk about you as if you were not in the room. It's not often in life that you hear people talking about you who don't know that you're there. I do sometimes wonder what people say about me when I'm not in the room, because generally speaking, people are, by and large, complimentary when I'm around. My perception of what people think about me is formed, of course, by my interactions with them. But then I wonder, what annoying traits do I have that people never approach me about? Or how do I upset people or let them down? I hear people complain about other people, and I sometimes complain about people, and I wonder, what do people complain about when they talk to others about me? If you're tempted to reveal it, you probably shouldn't. At least that's not what I'm asking for. I guess I'm just making an observation. Our self-perception is formed primarily by direct interactions, yet there is this whole other discussion that happens regarding us and how we affect other people that we rarely get the opportunity to observe. And perhaps that is for our own good. Then again, if we don't know what people really think and feel about us, how can our self-perception ever be accurate. If I could hear in plain terms the full gamut of people's opinion of me, would I have a healthier self-image or a worse one? Most of us were taught, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." That being the case, in all likelihood, we hear a lot more of people's positive opinions of us than we hear negative. (Sorry, that's a depressing thought. Nowhere to go but down from here.) Then again, I can think of many situations where I've held back on telling people what I like most about them. For whatever reason, I don't often tell friends exactly how highly I think of them, so I guess there may be room to go up after all.

In any case, I just wanted to make the observation that sometimes it's good to step outside the familiar. It can be exhilirating to start over, to allow new people to form new opinions about you. I think that's one of the reasons I went to Ireland. I felt like there was this entire side to myself that I wasn't aware of, and it was going to take being around different people with different values to help me accomplish that. Some people may see that as being inauthentic. I used to worry that I should be the exact same person no matter where I go or who I'm around. While I do think there is something harmful in living a double life, where you proclaim to be one thing in one place but live something entirely different in another (like that televangelist who was revealed for having sexual relations with a male prostitute all the while preaching against homosexuality), I think our personalities are so vast and adaptable, that different people can bring out different sides of our personality, and there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, I kind of like the fact that I don't have to be the same person in all circles. I feel fortunate that I was able to go to a new place where I literally was not known previously by anyone. I think it teaches you more about what is core to your personality and what is added on by other people's expectations for you. Granted, wherever you go, you will eventually have people's expectations put on you for who you ought to be. It's not good or bad in all instances, it's just life! An excellent novel to read that deals with this issue is The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. I like the novel, because Ellison was a black writer during the civil rights era, but he takes a different approach. Ellison goes beyond the black man's struggle and strives to reach out to the universal struggle to overcome our surroundings and expectations and to discover what is essentially our self, to find dignity. His character starts out at a black university that was ultimately founded by a white man. In trying to do the thing expected of him, he gets kicked out of school. Eventually he ends up in a civil rights movement where he is able to voice his discord with society. Over time he finds himself trapped by certain expectations there as well that stifle his voice and ability to be himself. He finds that wherever he goes, people try to use him for their own purposes. So anyway, I don't know how I ended up here. I meant for this to be entertaining initially, but in the end my thoughts took me to this. So there you go. If you gain nothing else from this post, at least you know a good book to read.