Tag Archives: dox populi

Friends,

Fellow blogger, Finn Longman wrote this post today which prompted me to write the comment which I will now copy here as a unique and exciting, never before seen blog post.

As an aside, writer’s block comes periodically to me when it’s time to blog, but I never have a problem taking a position and commenting on someone else’s ideas (for better or worse). Gonna keep that in mind and maybe transplant more comments into posts…..

So, read this and then go read Finn’s post:

I think it’s good that you’re realistic about the impossibility of deleting something forever. Now that I am taking one foot out of freelance/backpacker/digital nomadry and dipping my toe into being part of society, I have thought a lot about how to separate myself from my antics of the past (and present). A nom de plume helps, but a cursory google search will quickly reveal my legal name -and I don’t try and keep it a secret either.

I guess I am against deleting or curating our past. Please don’t take this as me shitting on you, it’s just a personal choice, but I really think that I would do myself greater harm by going back to facebook circa 2010 and deleting comments like “gimme a call when you this, nigga!” from a friend’s wall.

I cringe when I go back looking for old photos and see comments like this but I also laugh at how carefree we were playing in the frontier that was social media before it got suburbanized.

But it’s more than memories, its this bad feeling in my gut I get when I even think about deleting comments; when I do something wrong by my own standards. It’s like I’m trying to change the past. Or better yet, reality.

A wise man at a party once told me about his trinary….. trinitarian?? -he viewed life as three thirds:

Actor: The discrete facts of your life.
Character: The narrative you create.
Performance: How you are received by society.

I can’t change the facts of my life, but I can control which character I am playing. My character spoke frivolously and carelessly when he was younger, and even today he maintains an irreverence and sense of mischief which he is convinced he must preserve to maintain the twinkle in his eye and the joy in his heart. It’s a good character I think -I’ve been researching it for years and I’m ready to lean into the role. EDIT: Even better, the character doesn’t incorporate facts that are untrue or omit facts that aren’t pretty. There’s less anxiety when you wear a character which is tailor-fitted to you; less chance of being called out as a pretender. Ultimately the best role you play is the one best suited to you. The reaction of the Philistines in the peanut gallery to our performance matters less than the punishment we receive for playing an untrue character; that punishment is reckoned in anguish of the soul.

If the audience doesn’t like my masterful performance, I’ll seek a stage elsewhere.

Thanks for the inspiration to write, Finn

-Dre

Best,

-Dre (lol, redundant)