The masks of inscrutability, or are you really you?

[Morsul the Dark]

Andrew and Morsul are indeed Seperate however they usually converge At home Morsull is prominent at work Morsul sits quiet waiting to get home and onto the Downs On the downs Morsul reigns as top mind in the body of ours

[Mithalwen]

My cyber-self (I won't call her Mithalwen ..which just happened to be my main RPG char elsewhere when I signed up.... Mithalwen to me is that particular char - and is an elf and so gets to be elegant and ever-young ) is expression of my own personality undiluted by the restrictions placed on it in the actual world ..... in some ways this is the most real me for good or ill...... in a place, where I am surrounded by people with common interests, and we "see, no longer blinded by our eyes" .... So you get the best and the worst of me ..... depending whether my mind is in meat-cleaver, stream of consciousness or just plain ditzy mode.... the cyber-me can be a lot nastier and say the things I would only think off line - at least when ston-cold sober ! - but I am really trying to curb the inner bitch...but I fear I will always find the flippant remark irressistable and suffer the guilt when a blow falls heavier than I ever intended..... But the on-line self sometimes has the wits to edit or moderate thoughtless or intemperate remarks....

The internet is really the place where I do my talking mainly..... so many of my friends seem now incapable of talking of anything other than their children (what happened to those funny, clever women I knew at university? and will they ever recover ?) so I tend to have to do a lot of listening .... .Work conversations are usually faily mundane and..... so I think I would go quite mad or curl up and die if I couldn't talk about literature and psychology on-line ...... intellectual is still a bit of an insult in England ........ and there is such a risk of seeming affected of pretentious ....... I spend my life trying to wear my learning lightly...... so in a strange way it is a huge relief to come somewhere where most people are so evidently so much more learned and intelligent than me..... trying not to seem utterly stupid is the main challenge ... it is like the year I spent in Paris .... just about everyone I knew was at least an undergraduate, but many had Doctorates or were amazingly talented ...... it was humbling but very mentally stimulating.......

The cyber self gets to ramble on more cos noone can interrupt her ...lol

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Well Mithalwen, you remind me of the ways in which I prefer France to Britain! But I think I shall stay and fight. When the tabloids well and truly take over, I will leave! (Granted, that could be next year )

[InklingElf]

Who is me and who is my mask? I am always myself -- save for my inscrutable pseudonym and the logical avatar featuring a Vulcan with pointy ears and a deep, profound ponderous look.

My friends find it strange whenever I am engrossed on a post -- they don't read it mind you they simply disprove of the green ink and black background -- I don't really care about that.

My forum-self proves to be more talkative than my reality-self -- one can confuse the two at times but I love being both -- some how the Downs tends to balance my two selves out if you catch my drift.

Well that's just me talking...(wait which one!?)

[Meneltarmacil]

Meneltarmacil and Jamie are in fact almost the same at this point. Same sense of humor, for one. However, Jamie has definitely become more outgoing (and admittedly a little crazy... but in a good way) since Meneltarmacil has been around to bring out those hidden qualities in him. I used to be really quiet just about everywhere, and only spoke up to answer questions that I knew the answers to. However, since Meneltarmacil has brought out my more humorous and quite crazy side on the Downs, I have let it show a lot more in the "real world" as well. And I must say that I am pleased with the results, even though some people think I'm getting on their nerves.

[The Perky Ent]

I must confess! I lied to you all! It's all been a sham! I'm a dirty, rotten lier! I'm not perky! All the other ents were making fun of me :'( I just couldn't take it. Then, I found this sugar Pippin had left behind (that explains a lot), and all of a sudden, a transformation began! I was morphing into a Perky Ent!



.....(looks to left) (looks to right) hello? Anybody? ........

No, it's nothing like that! Pippin doesn't have sugar. If he did, it would have been gone by the Midgewater Marshes! Anyways, I have a weird connection to the downs. I always act like myself in reality, even while I'm posting. It's like I maintain myself, but my hands take on the identidy of a sugar weilding ent. It's strange. Oh well! Back to the sugar!

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

intellectual is still a bit of an insult in England ........ and there is such a risk of seeming affected of pretentious ....... I spend my life trying to wear my learning lightly...... so in a strange way it is a huge relief to come somewhere where most people are so evidently so much more learned and intelligent than me.....

Don't I know what you mean by that... In an attempt to not come off as pretentious or a know-it-all in the RW, I cater my vocabulary as well as my conversation to those around me. I suppose that's one of my many masks. Forgive me if this sound like I'm bragging, because I don't mean to, but it occurs to me that my brains and interests may make some people nervous. So I "hide" those interests and my general thoughts behind a "So what's for lunch today?" or a "Check out those shoes!" mask. And when I dare to come out from behind that mask? I usually regret it.

For example: for a class I was taking, we were forced to take part in mock interviews (which amused me, because my current job required no interview). The "scenario" was that I was interviewing for a job in an art museum, where I would not only help give tours, but I would give art classes. When asked about chalk pastels, I answered with a wink that I would try my darndest not to use them, because they are so gosh-darned messy and hard to be precise with, but if I did need to, I would show my students how to work from left to right (if they are righties) and to use a piece of paper on top so-as not to smear the chalk all over the rest of the work. Coupled with my knowledge of Da Vinci and my use of words like "posthumously" in general conversation... my teacher recieved a report back saying that other than sounding slightly pretentious, that I'd be great for the job (if, of course, it had been real, and I was older.). I wasn't meaning to sound pretentious, I was just talking to the guy like an intellectual equal.

It occurs to me also, that regardless of what I choose to show people of my personality or intellect, they will still see what they want to see. This past weekend, I was in the midst of a literary discussion (sadly NOT LotR, but rather The Da Vinci Code) with my godmother and my godbrother. It was especially interesting because my godmother had read it from a religious standpoint, I, from a scientific, artistic, and a holy-crap-I-didn't-know-this standpoint, and my godbrother hadn't yet read it, but was familiar with concepts therein. My point is, regardless of the validity of my points and the accuracy of my comments and references, my godmother tended to brush me off, still seeing me as her little god-daughter, as opposed to a bright young woman interested in and familiar with most of the components of the book!

Because of how she has known me (or not known me, I've yet to figure out which) my entire life, my godmother is slow to change perceptions of me. She likes to play the motherly teacher, when what I'd prefer is to pick her brain for unbiased information (hard to do, let me tell you, although she is brilliant). I suppose my point, although slow-coming, is that we are not the only ones who apply masks to ourselves. Other people, for whatever reasons, see us how they want to. Its as if they past a mask of their own creation over our faces, and forget that there is more behind it.

And now, after this essay I've unwittingly written, it is time to get some work done.

Cheers,
Fea