“Who are you when no one is watching?”
It’s been years since I read this quote for the first time and as precocious as it might sound for a 14 year old, since then I have always ruminated on why have we given so much importance to this need to restrict ourselves when someone’s watching?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating to let the intrusive thoughts win. And I’m definitely not upholding to doing anything and everything, there are always some situational restrictions. This is not The Purge and you’re not Ethan Hawke.
Yet, I’ve often wondered if everbody starts behaving in the desired “socially acceptable” way, human beings’ ability to be individually distinguishable, if confined to the template will just fade away.
Is this how a civilised society is supposed be? More and more similarly behaving men & women thinking they are superior to animals but in reality the only differentiating factor is their ability to make conscious decisions (which I think animals have too, to an extent)
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Human existence reduced to a checklist of right and wrong way of behaving when in public, is a killer of personalities I believe.
Every human being has his idiosyncrasies, and what’s a world where we can’t embrace them, can’t flaunt the fabric of their beautiful foolishness, free of the mortifying fear of being judged and looked down upon.
I absolutely adore people who own up to their sense of self, who eat, talk, sleep, act, dance.. a certain way particular to them, no matter how condescendingly the world views them, or how much undue disrespect they face. At least they are content with their own selves, proud of their being.
Here I don’t mean you need to blabber all the time, be blatantly disrespectful or be proudly clumsy about your surroundings, to be you. If you are a quiet person who enjoys a quiet life, you don’t need to act differently to make an impression on some extrovert person who you merely will just make an acquaintance with for a fleeting moment.
To put it simply, both Michael Scott and Stanley Hudson from The Office are two perfectly fine people, rather wonderfully created characters who don’t need to change their ways of life, their striking differences and their individual abilities to be content with those differences is what makes them remarkable.
So, the next time somebody hits you up with the good old “Who are you when no one is watching?” I hope you are confused about the relevance of this question because you are you no matter who’s watching!
