Daily Blague

This will be one of my anonymous entries, in that others will go nameless.

The first thing to say is that my life is so completely uneventful that there's nothing for anonymity to hide. I also write long paragraphs with big words - there's a sort of barrier in that alone. I'm far to old to be thinking about myself anymore: if there's anything that I've learned in the Blogosphere, it's that whether we ever do figure ourselves out or not, a comfortable accommodation is eventually reached. Furthermore, the older you get, the more interesting things you discover, and there comes a day when you yourself are not one of them. You might be interesting to other people, you might even be really unusual. But you're more interested in other stuff. We're all born with immense egos that, with luck, evaporate over time. A cynic might well say that our egotism simply becomes unconscious. In either case, it's nothing to write about.

But what's this? I am always writing about my ideas. To me, these ideas are not about me. To you, that might not be the case. "Oh, there he goes again; it's so totally RJ. If he says one word about television, I'm outta here." But I doubt that there's anything embarrassingly personal about what I have to say about what I'm thinking. (Perhaps I'm obtuse.) I'm still prone to hog the conversation, but not to talk about myself.

It occurs to me that my candor may be the product of having grown up in privilege. It didn't particularly feel like privilege at the time, but it undoubtedly was. But it was a precarious privilege. I recall with no small horror the time my father came home in the middle of the afternoon and, weeping, told us that he'd been fired. He went back to work the next day, but as he happened to be employed by a monster of caprice (whom he in due course of time replaced) there was always a feeling that the bottom could drop out. And my mother and I did not get along. She wanted me to be someone else, someone a lot more athletic and a lot less intellectual. I think of childhood as the worst part of my life. And maybe that's why I'm forward now: I've been through the worst. (Touch wood.)

I can think of a not-anonymous blog whose author is so discreet that it is impossible to draw inferences about his romantic life. That's fine, and if I'm curious I'm not distracted by curiosity. I know his name and something about his circumstances - which is more or less how I know anybody. But if his blog were anonymous, it would be different. This is the curious thing about anonymous blogs: they magnify their secrets. They drape them in neon colors. Anonymity itself suggests that there is a reason, above and beyond ordinary discretion, for anonymity. So! What's the secret? One blogger has told me that he regards details about his background as distractions. I beg to differ. The act of withholding them is arresting, a parallel to sensory deprivation. Tell me your age and where you live, and I've got enough to go on. Conceal these details, and for me at least your blog will be about anonymity - probably not your intention.

In an exchange about a well-known anonymous blogger who has recently written about transferring her affections, a friend told me that she is reluctant to post very much about her boyfriend for exactly this reason. Exactly what reason? My friend's blog is also anonymous. (Not to me, of course.) The well-known blogger is an exception to my rule: she writes lucidly about very personal matters, and in such a way that satisfies instead of arousing noseyness. In her case, there really is a reason for anonymity. (And even then, anonymity is qualified by her participation in blogmeets.) 

There is always, certainly, the delicacy of writing about one's job to consider, but hardly anybody does this well. The one exception that I can think of, wouldn't you know, is the man who wants to avoid "distractions." It is hard to imagine that the very exciting things that he says about life at his office could be published under his actual name. That's part of what makes them breathtaking. So he, too, has a reason to be anonymous. I just think he carries discretion a little too far - to where it becomes just what he was trying to avoid: distracting.