Anon

I’ve been thinking over the past few days about anonymity. Very few people are able to exercise this remarkable feat, even if they’re dead.

You could be one of the most unacknowledged people on the planet, and there would still be something on you, somewhere. For example: the never-contacted-before Envira Indians existing near the Peru border in Brazil who were photographed in May 2008. Never heard of them. Never knew they existed. But now there’s something on them.

I often look over the blogs I keep, my email, twitter, Facebook and think: why the hell am I exposing myself like this? I’ve no real desire for recognition, nor do I hold social networking particularly high in regard, but I often have something to say and that’s probably the only reason why I haven’t erased my identity from the internet.  As far as is possible to erase.

Note: I wonder what will happen to all of these efforts when I’m dead…

I’ve got a fair bit to say sometimes but I’m aware that not many people take the time to listen and I don’t especially care. It only takes one person to listen and then it’s up to them to decide what to do with the things I’ve said.

I more or less have reasonable control of my presentation and representation in the material I directly publish about myself on the internet but I have virtually no control when having to relinquish my personal details to say, Amazon or my general practitioner.

Amazon pays attention to my browsing history and tempts me with similar items whilst the doctors don’t do much of anything except sit quietly with my details until another body contacts them and requests information. With my consent of course.

And this is where it begins to bug me.

Does consent even mean anything?

I have to fill in a CRB disclosure form, like most people, in order to breathe. I also need to apply for a passport to prove my identity beyond a shadow of a doubt. And it’s not even that now, is it? Not after recent events where it was shown that passports can be successfully made on a fraudulent and sophisticated basis.

I was under the impression that passports were to enable travel and free movement. Now they’re a fallible form of identity.

I have no choice but to give my consent for private information about me to be passed from one party to another. Sure, I can deny this consent but then that suspends my rights.

Perhaps I’m being far too cynical here but I can clearly see that by not disclosing my mental health to a potential employer, the said employer can, if they so wished, release me from my position with relative ease and no obligation to help or support me if I suddenly go off the deep end. I have to tell but I don’t really want to. Why?

Because sometimes, it’s nobody’s damned business.

This is the crux of my irritation. Why do so few have the right to know so much about my private life but I have no right to protect myself from them? Not without sacrificing my civil rights at the same time.

Disclosure isn’t for my own protection. It’s for interested parties to keep tabs on and exploit.

This is what happens when you forget to pack the twine…

It’s been one of those weeks where you easily get lost in everything; you know those kiddy activities you get on the back of paper placemats, the ones with the mazes? I was shit at those. I have trouble seeing logical patterns and yet at the same time, have some of the most outlandish and imaginative ideas, make some of the most ridiculous connections and make them seem plausible.

I’ll not betray my influences this week. Larsson’s Millenium Trilogy has sent me spinning and kick-started an urge to scribble every detail down.

I’m in a process of retreating. Right into the maelstrom too. I’ve never been so thrilled at burying myself in my own thoughts and seeing what happens when I pull at this thread and the next.

This is introspective, don’t you think? All of you who have come from afar must think: surely this is not the same person? It is. I keep my pep and my doom relatively separate. Hello by the way. I hope that you’ll continue to follow me here.

And this is so cryptic. But that’s what happens when you retreat into the trees, the web, the tunnels, the labyrinth – whatever euphemism you want to give it. The truth of the matter is, I’ve been quite mad for the past week, barely present at all, and now I’ve found myself presented with the opportunity to sneak off into a badly lit corner… where I can report here about the things that keep creeping up in my mind, such as:

• How odd it is that both the leaders of the Conservatives and Labour have close-set eyes (that’s not a dig, I couldn’t care less if they were 12ft tall and multicoloured. It’s purely an observation…)
• There are things hidden everywhere and unless you’re in-the-know, you’re likely to walk past these hidden things all the time without realising
• My life is documented in ways and places that I can’t necessarily access with ease. I find this very uncomfortable. Judgements are made without me knowing or being able to refute them
• Somewhere in British Columbia, the Orca I chose to adopt and support for £3 a month is swimming about, living
• Dead people are the most interesting people ever

So what will become of me now? Between playing online and thinking deeply, I’m going to be writing. Maybe nothing will come of it. Maybe something explosive will happen. I’m open to the possibilities but one thing is for sure: I will be writing.

I haven’t said that in over a year.

For those of you who are thinking of sticking around, I may have more focused musings in the short period between now and then.