Why do we
crave for anonymity? Why do we prefer it? Is it because it’s the first thing
that is stripped off us, even before the umbilical cord is severed? The
anonymity of being “a fetus” gives way to the publicity of being a boy or a girl
(if she is allowed to be born in these times) or a cine star’s baby or some
other such tag. In India when you are born you not only get a name you get
multiple identities which surround you like how a wild flame surrounds a tiny
wick .Boy or girl, Dalit or Brahmin, Hindu or Muslim, enterprising Gujarati or
a Spartan Naga and so on. And we live with these tags for the rest of lives
unmindful of what could have been if not for the accident of birth.
But how do we handle anonymity? One Dwight L Moody once said “character
is what you are in the dark”. This question assumes significance in this world
of instant communication through social network and micro blogging sites. Given
a chance practically everyone would lap up anonymity, but what they do with it
is a direct function of their character and haecceity. Most morph into internet
trolls spewing venom on everyone who crosses their path. Some turn to poetry and
some disclose classified state secrets!
Is this 'power', then, sustainable? Whenever an anonymous person
becomes famous (or notorious) he comes under tremendous pressure to shed this veil.
And the pressure is exerted by none other than his own mind his personality which
had, in the first place forced him to seek cover from the public glare. It
takes a great mind and infinite will power to resist the seductive charms of
fame. Not many are built that way. And that brings back to square one, do we really
crave anonymity? The answer now, would be no. Except in conditions where
anonymity can save your life (sometimes even certain death fails to scare)
people desire contact with others. We were built that way. Evolutionarily and anthropologically.
We have always lived in groups met others of our own kind and formed cliques. Hunted
in packs and mourned in company. We want others; to love them, to be annoyed at
them, hate them, pamper them or revile them.
And this is why social networking sites became such huge
hits. Instead of donning a new avatar (what happened in the initial days of
social networking) today we broadcast the minutest, most base, most trivial occurrence
of our largely uneventful lives.Why? So that we can find someone who revels in
our joy, who shares or grief, who dampens our worries and who compliments what
we lack.
So take back this anonymity and cut this umbilical cord and
let us forth in this world where we may find love, joy, friendship and yes a
few cat memes!
