The masks of inscrutability, or are you really you?

[davem]

Well, David Marley is not exactly davem. davem is way too dogmatic & sure of himself, & a lot of the time I'm slightly embarrassed to be associated with him - I wish he would be more polite & less 'certain', & stop pretending to be some kind of expert on all things Tolkien, because I don't believe he's anything of the kind.

I also wish I understood half of what he wrote, or where it came from - too much of what he posts just comes to him as hes typing, & he has a bad habit of just hitting the submit button before he'e re-read it & thought about it.

[Crystal Heart]

I have to say that I disagree. Crystal Heart and my real personality are the same in every way. I created my screenname to represent me. I have never thought about it before in any different way. We are both the same person. As my signature says: What you see is exactly what you get. Don't say I didn't warn you.

-Crystal Heart-

[mark12_30]

Er...

I think mark12_30 and Helen wish they weren't quite so similar.

And I bet Mithadan won't post on this thread. Nor Mister Underhill either. Talk about sustaining a mystique.

[The Saucepan Man]

If anything, davem, it's the opposite for me. I suspect that the Man behind the Pans is sometimes less thoughtful and reasonable than his Forum counterpart. After all, he does not, in real life, have the luxury of reviewing and moderating everything that he says before he says it.

Edit: I cross-posted with you, H-I, but I would certainly agree with you when you say:

But in virtual friendship, it is easier to hurt. Hence the caution and politeness, which I would not have shown if we were indeed in a mentioned pub.

That's part of what I was trying to get across above. It also explains my excessive use of 'smileys'.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Great thread idea, HI!

The difference between my real life identity (H****) and my online personality is complicated by the fact that Estelyn has two different aspects to her: she is the person who posts and moderates on the forum today, but she is also a character who lives in Fourth Age Middle-earth and takes part in (RPG) adventures there.

Similarities: Both H* and Estelyn are female, both no longer in their youth. (Though the online person is quite reticent about giving her exact age, since numbers can be divisive, and it's nice to cross age boundaries on the internet.) I think that the way Estelyn reacts is fairly similar to H*'s reactions. The moderator Estelyn does weigh her words more carefully than the poster Esty does, though. (Hmmm, even the change in nick, cutting it short to Esty, seems to change things - I don't use the abbreviation in my official function.) Both Estelyn and H* are reticent about showing too much of their private side to others unless they feel safe.

It's easier to define the differences than the similarities, I think. I would agree with Saucepan that the online person has the advantage of proofreading conversations, so that mistakes made by spontaneous utterances are few and far between, hopefully. There's also a major difference in language - Estelyn writes in English, H* speaks German almost all of the time - that certainly influences the choice of words and sentence structure.

Estelyn writes a lot - H* very little. The latter tends to forget to answer e-mails and writes so few letters that she is surprised to find out that the price of postage has changed again. Her journal is written very erratically, and she never writes fiction. Estelyn is involved in RPGs and spends hours crafting posts for her characters; furthermore, she has even begun online journaling, with the result that there are more recent entries there than in her private, hand-written one.

The RPG Estelyn lives a much more adventurous life; though she has her home base in Minas Tirith as the Head Loremistress of the Library there, she travels a lot to gather stories. Actually, now that I think about it, that's a similarity - her real life creator likes to travel to gather impressions and ideas as well!

And then there's the chat Esty - she's a combination of H* and Estelyn - a bit more daring and less inhibited than in real life though, with a tendency to enjoy mild flirtation occasionally...

So, to answer the question HI poses - is Estelyn a mask that H* wears? I would say not - she's just part of a personality that is much more complicated than can be shown online. (The older I get, the less inclined I am to put on a show for the benefit of the public.) But maybe there's a bit of a mask, for who can show a naked face to all of the world?!

[HerenIstarion]

That was a read, my lady, thank you

for who can show a naked face to all of the world?

Who can, indeed. Or, even, who can dig up said naked face to have something to show? All underlying layers seem masks as well sometimes...

[Child of the 7th Age]

Heren,

An interesting idea for a thread. I will reply later, but wanted to share one small thought with you concerning masks.

It seems to me that this isn't the only place in life where we wear masks. There are masks I wear on this site that may shield or modify certain aspects of my "real" personality, generally by choice. Yet out there in the "real" world, there are other masks I wear, which can be equally concealing. The latter can be by choice, by necessity, or sometimes merely by default, dictated by the particular situation I am in. So, in a strange way, there are pieces of "me" on this site involving writing and imagination that sometimes get hidden in real life except with family or very close friends. (And of course the opposite is also true.)

So where does the 'real' me lie? Perhaps in some combination that I have yet to achieve?

I sometimes wonder which Tolkien was more 'real' -- the dedicated scholar and family man of Carpenter's biography, whose life was 'hemmed in' by practical cares and necessities, or the Elf-friend who wandered freely in the land of Faerie?

A strange thought, but something to consider in responding to this thread. (And now Heren runs off to place a call to those doctors! )

[HerenIstarion]

edit: cross posting with Mark here, the reply was mainly to the post prior to hers.

Hey, Helen, no knowing about Mr. U, but about Mith your guess is probably correct . Could we tease him into it? Something like 'bet you a dollar you won't show up in the Masks thread? Wonder if he would fall for dollar, though...

end of edit

*********************

Good for you You won't need the contact details of doctors, even if those are provided

But a bit of clarification: the topic is based mainly on perception of things as yours truly sees them. For me, name defines thing to an extent (even when I do not think it out, on some unconscious level), so different names have to be defining different things. That's why (up to a point) HerenIstarion is not the same as George Lashkhi for me. The innumerable connotations, based, among other things, on visual effect of names being written down, and the sound of them pronounced, do the trick too.

Besides, even when I do not think that either out, I inevitable act differently as reacting to different situations. Hence, as my presence (as presence of other members, of course) is virtual, expressed by what I write, not by how I look or what I sound like, I act differently of what I would do if we all were having rounds of beer in a pub. We all are up to a point incognito. No one can know as a fact, whether I have four huge-n-hairy warts on the tip of my nose or not, so to say, and it makes me free. On the other hand, the opinion of mates here rates higher, for we all feel and are equals, it is what C.S.Lewis called (as a joke) 'mutual admiration society', or friendship. But in virtual friendship, it is easier to hurt. Hence the caution and politeness, which I would not have shown if we were indeed in a mentioned pub.

Hence conclusion - if HerenIstarion acts differently from George Lashkhi, and has his own name, we are separate (even if slightly so) persons, are not we?

It's a bit of a joke too, but as Russians say, there is a bit of a truth to each joke, or, as H-I (but not GL) would put it, there is a bit of a joketo each joke, and the rest is truth

cheers