ME vs. Me – Real vs. Virtual Self
A person goes to a cinema to get refreshed and no one can steal those 2 hours of virtual happiness and imagination from him, provided the movie is good enough. Similarly a person creates an online profile with variety of names ranging from “Neo-The one” to “Being Human” reflecting his thoughts, desires and favouritism. Like the Neo of the Matrix learns that Trinity and Morpheus likes dwell on the human bio electricity and have the ability to plug and unplug humans, we all have learnt to find virtual power in the online world. No one wants to show their real face to the masked people in the online destinations like blogs, messengers and social networks. I read somewhere that Facebook is all about projecting your mediocre moments as awesome ones. It is so true.
Now that many are addicted to online communication and social networks it suddenly becomes a necessity that you flaunt your happening life over there under some masked name where the silly troubles or frustrations are also masked. A person with the name “I rock” puts up his cover photo where he is standing on the rock in Ladakh and show to the world. People only queue up to like his pic or throw one or two hasty comments like “U rock”, “U r gorgeous <3”, “Wow” and so on so forth. It almost seems like he has conquered the world! The amount of happiness a facebook like gives is equal to the bliss during the salary hike!
In reality how many rocks, stones and obstacles “I rock” had to cross to reach Ladakh or when and for how many days he was hospitalised or when was he robbed of all his money is not disclosed by him to the virtual world. If those details are also displayed needless to say he will gain instant sympathy and advice from Tom, Dick and Harry! Actually the virtual world is open to everything and accepts anything you give to them with all might. It just depends on you as to what all you want to reveal, whereas in real world there are some limitations to revelations or at least objections as you have to face the person and talk to him in real. If you wear a mini skirt to your in-law’s house you will be objected where as your photo in the same mini skirt can be your profile picture with 1000s of likes which will be your hour of fame. In the real world you are just another person and it is just another day which starts at 9 and ends at 6 starting with coffee , oats , the same boss, same meeting, same phone calls, same soaps, sitcoms but when it comes to discussing them virtual world’s doors are always open. Like in some movie you might be chatting with a person who is just sitting diagonally opposite to you. You are a celebrity in your virtual world!
You might put up a status on your Facebook that says “My office sucks”. No one will mind. If moral police has all its eyes on you that’s a different topic but certainly you won’t be able to put up the same status on the office IM. You might write a rant post which discloses all your office secrets and boyfriend frustrations on a blog and you will get comments from nook and corner of the world but if you try discussing the same frustration with your boss your appraisal will be at toss!
You are identified as Mr. Kapoor in your office but you change your avatar every alternate day in virtual world. Now which one is your actual personality and the real identity can be decided only by you. Some people are simple, sober and stick to only the real world. Some are flamboyant and try maintaining no boundary in both the worlds where as some differ in both the worlds. Which exactly is their real identity is an open question?
It all is messed up as to what is really virtual or which is virtually real. It will take a life time to identify the identities, illusions and virtual realities. As a final word I wrote a poem which shows two faced identities of a person.
“In solitude my mind it screams.
My virtual face is in bliss and it beams.
At this hour of night I sleep but she dreams.
One is sad and the other is in hearty smiles.
One is resting in peace and the other has travelled miles!”
