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I enjoy:

Ali Edwards
Celine Navarro
Michelle LaPoint Rydell
Revlie
Marit
Elise Blaha
Annemarie
Les ateliers de Karine
Amy Tangerine
A Beautiful Mess
Balzer Designs
Bram's tea blog

And in Dutch I enjoy:

Maarten Batenburg
Museum Meermanno
Roeland van Wely

I live, I love, I create, I capture, I learn, I enjoy.

Be You

Recently I was asked to paint a self portrait in words. Elsewhere on that application I could write about what I do and like, so the self portrait wasn't about that but more clearly defined. I could only come up with a few characteristics: creative, likes to learn, social, sense of humour, opinionated. What else defines me nowadays? How different would this self portrait look from what I would have answered a few years ago? I think I would have added shy and would have been too shy to add social. I'm more confident about the 'likes to learn' thing, now that I'm getting to put it into practise more. 'Intelligent' or 'fun' sound arrogant if I say it myself, even if I believe they're true ;-) Pragmatic? Weird? Happy? Silly? Nice? How clear is my view of myself? And how deep do I want to dig for something like this, how much of myself do I want to show? I'm consiously omitting a few things as I write this due to them being too private.

Something like this is just as much about the platform it is meant for and the image of myself I want to put out there. With social media, all those platforms that you could once upon a time keep sort of seperated now come together. I only have to look at my list of friends on facebook (to which I rarely allow people whom I have never met in person or haven't gotten to know trough other ways like mailinglists) to see the proof of that; friends, family, acquaintances, fellow students, people I've met trough the patient organisation, people I've met at Museum Meermanno, people I've met trough different types of mailinglists, people from the scrapbooking world, people I know from the fantasy scene... People ranging from 14y/o to about 70. People I've only recently gotten to know and people I've known all my life. People with all sorts of different interests, all representing some of the things I am, like or do. People that barely know me and some of my best friends. People from the Netherlands and from abroad. People who I think are kinda nice and people I love.

I have never been one to present myself differently from who I am. Just tonight I was talking to someone about how much energy it takes to do that and how in the end, it doesn't work if you keep adapting your behaviour because you just can't keep it up. He had only just learned that and fully agreed. It's not sustainable, he said. It felt freeing to him to not do so anymore.
Sometimes, life would have been easier if I would have been able and willing to conform to certain social standards. Sometimes doing so to a certain degree is useful or right, but to my opinion, many people seem to do that far too quickly, succumbing under social pressure (intentional pressure or just because they féél such pressure, that might not even be there.)
Off course I share more with some than I do with others. And in the company of different people, in different situations, other personal traits or interests stand out more clearly. I've heard people complain about this 'problem' of having to balance in the midst of all their social circles at once due to social media, but I actually like it. I like that people are getting to know 'me' (that is, to the extend I open up on facebook and here) and not just the side of me that emerges in the situation I usually meet them. I like getting to know different sides of people I know. And I like how sometimes people from my different social circles interact with each other when reacting on my facebook posts.

Looking at that friendslist and all those 69 very different people on it I feel rich. Maybe I should have added that to the self portrait. Rich. And maybe the membership that application was meant for will add to that number of facebook peeps. It has already added a little to that feeling of being rich, having met some nice people tonight who were fun to hang out with. How boring life would be if everyone would just conform and try or pretend to be the same and compel others to do so too. Because we're all equal, but different in so many ways. Long live uniqueness, go out there, be brave if that's what it takes, but whatever you do: be yourself! You will be the richer for it, and so will the world.

Geplaatst op 11-10-2012.
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