Private or public?

An uncle of ours discovered a video of a nephew crooning away on social media. When he saw the gifted young man who he had known from the time the singer had been an infant, his avuncular affection only strengthened. He promptly shared the vocalist’s prowess on his social media platform. One kin commented that the alto’s parents were unaware of the existence of this show.

Within a day’s time, the hero of the recital was engulfed with attention in his family circles. He flew into a fit of rage. He had uploaded his video on a network exclusively created for his friends. He felt that his privacy had been breached despite all the caution he had exercised. He sulked for a while before coming to terms with what had happened. In retrospection, the adulation he received soothed the ethos of the singer in him, for he knew that the many who had commented were quite accomplished in the field. Further reflection made him realise that expecting his kin to respect his confidentiality was illogical. After all, he had publicised his talent on a public platform albeit under a pseudo profile. His attitude underwent a sea of change. From then on, the chastened singer’s posts gained character. He decided have a uniform identity across social media. He uploaded worthy posts infrequently yet inimitably.

The episode of the chastened young adult ended on a good note. However, not all incidents end similarly.

Picture the current scenario. People are spending most of their waking hours online. They are using technology to update themselves, to work and mainly to stay connected with their loved ones. Given the nature of the human mind to wander, they spend quite a bit of time peeking through other people’s posts too. They feel tickled when they see a fake profile with filtered information about some people they know personally. When people have the option to react or comment on the various happenings there is little chance that they will let go of the opportunity to do so.

On the one hand, people are merrily sharing innocuous private moments of their lives publicly on the other hand they get terribly rattled when they receive undesirable or caustic reactions on their posts. If one cannot maintain equanimity no matter what the responses to their posts they must either refrain from advertising their status or learn to take the bouquets and brickbats with grace.

Won’t life become easier if we integrated our private and public image and live up to Joyce Meyer’s definition of integrity by being the same in public as in private?