Thoughts on fiction
I just don't feel very plausible these days. Well, let me back up a bit:
So this whole thing is going to be based around more or less an extended subtweet, because I'm not linking to anybody. In the small world of German bloggers, it turned out that one of what I would call the most prominent writers appears to have been less than honest with a large part of their background story. They had started writing about their (inaccurate) family history in reputable magazines and newspapers, who eventually realized that some things didn't quite add up. In true egomaniac blogger fashion, I want to talke about ME instead though.
The revelation that a good part of their story that, even though I always thought parts of it seemed a bit far-fetched, was made up has hit me in an unexpected way. It wasn't so much that I was shocked about it - in a strange way, I accepted this turn of events as another link in a chain of unlikely events that seemed to be the whole story. However, it has made me reflect about my own online presence.
Since I stopped working, I haven't really interacted with a lot of people in person on a regular basis. Instead, most of my interpersonal contact has been via various messengers both on my computer and my phone. This has been both with people who knew me and with people who don't really know all that much about me.
On top of that, I have been writing a lot of job applications and I have been in interviews that were basically all about proving and showing that I can really do the things that I claim to do. Since I also recently hired a bunch of people, I have been reminded that there is a very limited amount of information that you can find out about someone from just communicating with them via the internet. Even in person, it takes quite a while to really get to understand someone.
What I am trying to get at is, in a lot of my recent interpersonal interaction, me being the person that I said I was has been more or less permanently if not in question, then certainly in flux. To a limited extent, in job interviews you are trying to present yourself as the best possible version of yourself, and more than that, as the version of yourself that would be right for that job. Since I have applied for a bunch of jobs, and having been lacking in affirming who I am with people in person, the definition of who I am has become weirdly blurry.
I don't really have a lot of feedback these days from human interaction about who I am and how I come across, so in a way, a lot of what is currently my identity has become more or less fictional. Since part of my job is also making up plausible fictions and narratives, part of my identity right now feels more like a project that I am working on rather than anything real.
Now that this case, a lot of what was communicated online has turned out to be fictional, it feels like a good amount of what makes me me has now lost its basis in reality as well. In a way, my life appears to have turned into fiction, only held together by the conviction of my own storytelling.
This certainly isn't helped by the fact that I have been reading Murakami again lately, where the bounds between reality and imagination are notoriously porous. And also, this isn't helped by the fact that the story of my life so far doesn't really feel especially plausible in the first place. I have moved countries more than most people, all of that for a job in which people don't really especially moves countries a lot at all. I have a large number of skills and interests that don't really go together naturally, something that I actually cultivated over the years.
So it feel like I need to prove what holds me together as a person, even to myself, which is an odd feeling. Not scary exactly, but a little bit disconcerting. I am hoping that wherever I move next, I can find myself rooted a little bit stronger in the physical reality of the city and its people.
Here in Paris right now, I feel mostly like an improbable ghost. But at least, it's in the Casper sense of the word.
So this whole thing is going to be based around more or less an extended subtweet, because I'm not linking to anybody. In the small world of German bloggers, it turned out that one of what I would call the most prominent writers appears to have been less than honest with a large part of their background story. They had started writing about their (inaccurate) family history in reputable magazines and newspapers, who eventually realized that some things didn't quite add up. In true egomaniac blogger fashion, I want to talke about ME instead though.
The revelation that a good part of their story that, even though I always thought parts of it seemed a bit far-fetched, was made up has hit me in an unexpected way. It wasn't so much that I was shocked about it - in a strange way, I accepted this turn of events as another link in a chain of unlikely events that seemed to be the whole story. However, it has made me reflect about my own online presence.
Since I stopped working, I haven't really interacted with a lot of people in person on a regular basis. Instead, most of my interpersonal contact has been via various messengers both on my computer and my phone. This has been both with people who knew me and with people who don't really know all that much about me.
On top of that, I have been writing a lot of job applications and I have been in interviews that were basically all about proving and showing that I can really do the things that I claim to do. Since I also recently hired a bunch of people, I have been reminded that there is a very limited amount of information that you can find out about someone from just communicating with them via the internet. Even in person, it takes quite a while to really get to understand someone.
What I am trying to get at is, in a lot of my recent interpersonal interaction, me being the person that I said I was has been more or less permanently if not in question, then certainly in flux. To a limited extent, in job interviews you are trying to present yourself as the best possible version of yourself, and more than that, as the version of yourself that would be right for that job. Since I have applied for a bunch of jobs, and having been lacking in affirming who I am with people in person, the definition of who I am has become weirdly blurry.
I don't really have a lot of feedback these days from human interaction about who I am and how I come across, so in a way, a lot of what is currently my identity has become more or less fictional. Since part of my job is also making up plausible fictions and narratives, part of my identity right now feels more like a project that I am working on rather than anything real.
Now that this case, a lot of what was communicated online has turned out to be fictional, it feels like a good amount of what makes me me has now lost its basis in reality as well. In a way, my life appears to have turned into fiction, only held together by the conviction of my own storytelling.
This certainly isn't helped by the fact that I have been reading Murakami again lately, where the bounds between reality and imagination are notoriously porous. And also, this isn't helped by the fact that the story of my life so far doesn't really feel especially plausible in the first place. I have moved countries more than most people, all of that for a job in which people don't really especially moves countries a lot at all. I have a large number of skills and interests that don't really go together naturally, something that I actually cultivated over the years.
So it feel like I need to prove what holds me together as a person, even to myself, which is an odd feeling. Not scary exactly, but a little bit disconcerting. I am hoping that wherever I move next, I can find myself rooted a little bit stronger in the physical reality of the city and its people.
Here in Paris right now, I feel mostly like an improbable ghost. But at least, it's in the Casper sense of the word.
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