Presentation and Identity

I've had two very interesting conversations here at the conference over the last couple of days. Last night at the opening reception, I talked with one of the presenters from the tutorial that I had taken earlier in the day. In the tutorial, he asked how many of us had blogs. I think four of us raised our hands. Then he asked why did we have blogs.

My answer in the tutorial was kind of half-assed, because I don't think that well on my feet. But at the reception, he asked me if he could read my blogs, and I told him okay. I told him that it was very difficult for me to tell him where to find them, because it was (at once, so public) so personal. Funny thing about that.

Then I went into my "All of us think we are normal" talk, and ended with it's our public presentation - what the world sees - that's what we construct as normal. What's personal is what's beneath the clothes, makeup, skin. And it's anything but normal. It's a cauldron of attitude, fear, shame, passion, guilt, in short the very motivation for the presentation. It's our public presentation that people love, and it so unnerves us, because what's underneath that presentation, that which no one knows or sees, is what we really our, and it scares us to death.

So, the speaker in today's last session is a professional storyteller, and she spoke about storytelling, primarily as it affects the imaginations of children, and how it should be part of the public school curriculum. Afterwards, I went up and talked with her about storytelling, and I connected it with my blogging experience. It's here, right here reader, right on this blog where you can read it, that I feel vulnerable, raw, disoriented, and fearful. It's the very same place from which storytellers tell their stories. The honest storyteller is compelling because the tale is one that touches the heart, and finally enlivens the soul. I write my blog because it turns me from a technogeek into a very human geek.