Transparency — Intimacy — Dishonesty
//Unedited//
With the gift of transparency, the image I hold is something you can see through. Maybe you know what you’re gonna see, maybe you don’t, but the outer body is transparent, so you can always just look. I see how this is a step up from intimacy. Steps up. I don’t consider it a gift, per se.
A part of me is convinced that intimacy only flourishes with exclusivity. You won’t be intimate with everyone, and everything, this part of me concludes. I immediately agitate at this, because another aspect of me says, why not? Can I not have intimacy washing the dishes? Can the soap duds and the scents and water not have a unique thriving relationship with me? The indifferent sides of me observe this and think, yeah, but to what end? You can do without a soap romance. This part sounds like they’re dying or ready to die. I don’t enjoy their voice.
As I observe these tugs and assertions within me I’m able to make sense of a few things. Experience is a good enough reason for me to explore anything. Intimacy with your cups and plates is merely an experience. The day to day ordinariness is filled with experiences of similar chores and experience is a good enough reason to be committed to all of them. I will find closeness with myself and the elements while sweeping my porch.
Intimacy with people feels a little different. There’s a mutuality to the knowing that I don’t exactly experience with things. Knowing glances, remarks, touches, smiles. Mutual knowledge of each other. Transparency feels charged here, for different reasons. When a person has seen through you, it’s often freeing but can also feel limiting. I guess words are no longer needed once everything can be seen, but at the same time, do you know all you see is only the ME in this moment with you? Only a ME that is with you in this specific way, at that? What you hold is fleeting. I can be anyone with anyone, and whatever quality they perceive clearly could evolve by morning, even in their presence. It’s charged with much polarity — being seen through. It seems to me, that the real value of transparency lies in experiencing it as a constant state. To be transparent all the time, means fresh knowledge and access all the time. And while I don’t see why not… I also don’t see why yes. I largely feel we should be open in direct proportion to what others are open to receive. I also feel we should know what we are opening up and laying bare prior to doing so. Spontaneous transparency often results in me being surprised by who I am. I don’t enjoy the idea of that, I like to feel like I am aware of all I am before others at least. I don’t want to discover my crevices in full view of someone else. Being guarded makes me feel like I am in control of what people see about me, even though I know it’s not actually true. I wonder what it is that I find so alluring about not being fully known, and why I ove to wield mystery as a tool of the self.
All that aside, there’s no doubt that to be seen is to be free. What can constrict me, once everything is already laid bare? For me there’s nothing greater than our pursuits of freedom, and I understand how intricately transparency and freedom are woven together. All the same a lot of caution comes up here for me. I’m often scrambling to cover up, partly because what is seen is what can be scrutinized. Now that you know this part of me so clearly, what are you going to do with it? I guess it’s why I don’t exactly see transparency as a gift. Because now you have given people the tools to you, while intentionally defenseless. Other things are at play for me, there’s much to work through. Distrust, fear, criticism, external validation, among other things. To be transparent, not one of these can rule me. Maybe I may feel them, but they can’t rule me or undermine my behavior. Committing to this requires a lot of inner work and understanding. A lot of compassion and gentleness as well.
I don’t blame myself for choosing dishonesty at times.