Anonymity versus Openness

Is it about whose opinion matters?

This weekend I socialised with my colleagues. We went for a movie, we did dinner, we went book-shopping, we went dancing. We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. We also had some ‘moments of truth’ that could have lead to frank discussions but somehow didn’t.

At the moment, some of my colleagues read my blogs as a result of some of my recent blogging actions. Blogging actions like commenting as IdeaSmith on certain blogs, linking to certain posts and people…well, lets just say juggling multiple identities, some of them anonymous requires some tactical and strategic thinking. Not all of them know that it’s my blogs that they are reading. But it shouldn’t be that difficult to guess.

In any case, at the moment there are more people who know me and read my blog than ever before. It is the old dilemma of anonymity versus openness. These days my issue with revealing myself isn’t so much fear of being judged as it is about loss of readership. My readership is important to me and somehow I get the feeling my posts wouldn’t be half as interesting if people had a face and name to attach to them.

Coming back to my original thought though, on why I’m feeling a little easier in my mind about letting my colleagues read my blog. It seems like I’m not as afraid of being judged by them now. Some things at work have made me feel more confident about being myself. Oddly enough I’m letting my guards down with some of them because they don’t matter as much to me now. Is that weird? You are yourself with people who don’t matter as much? Yes it is pretty weird.