A Relative and Representative Profile

Contour Lines | 013

Happy Monday Readers!

On the heels of the themes of liminal growth and compassion, I find my thoughts coming to Ralph Waldo Emerson, in particular his line from Nominalist and Realist:

“The man momentarily stands for the thought, but will not bear examination; and a society of men will cursorily represent well enough a certain quality and culture, for example chivalry or beauty of manners, but separate them, and there is no gentleman and no lady in the group.

That happens in the world which we often witness in a public debate. Each of the speakers expresses himself imperfectly; no one of them hears much that the others says, such is the preoccupation of mind of each; and the audience, who have only to hear and not to speak, judge very wisely and superiorly how wrongheaded and unskillful is each of the debaters to his own affair.”

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I find myself wondering if Emerson’s take is both enforced and reversed in the digital age.

Social media is rife with temporary thoughts and causes, words spat out in an attempt to be heard or seen, but much of the persona on display does not, as Emerson puts it, bear examination. There is a move towards dropping any sense of dissonant masquerade between our public, personal, and professional lives, but it isn’t societal embraced. We believe in the myths and constructs we have been operating under - that we have to look, act, and live a certain way.

These identities work well for different strata of social media, as long as one fits with a certain quality or culture. But the fallacy here is that we are simultaneously linked and separated both intrinsically and extrinsically. We find ourselves removed from who we are - staring at the liminal growth river watching it flow endlessly forward, absent compassion from our lives. We have connections online, followers, subscribers, but what percentage would we have met and interacted with offline if we hadn’t first encountered the mask they presented to the world? It’s a continuation of how well you know your coworkers or employees beyond what they show you at work.

Are we actually listening to others when they speak, or simply being as wrongheaded and unskillful as we interpret the others to be (or the opposite), and even further than that, is it possible to express oneself perfectly, when our words are interpreted in myriad ways beyond our control?

When these questions are entertained, and pretenses are dropped, do we see each other for each other, absent judgement?

While I don’t think it is the status quo, I do believe the way are currently interacting at superficial levels online is a myth that can be broken.

In fact I know it can, as I see it every day. And it translates back to compassion.

That’s what aspects of connection ring true when operating online.

Remembering that everyone you meet, is actually human.

That is how you bear examination.