Anonymity

Keeping Secrets*

Humans are a sneaky, secretive lot, aren't they?

Perhaps you haven't really given this much thought—and why should you.

But Fogy has. Years of experience, tons of new technology, and the willingness of normal, ordinary people to do things they shouldn't do have hardly surprised him.

There seems to be an inexplicable thrill in doing things we think nobody can see.

And that is where anonymity comes into play. But why?

To understand this properly, it's worth considering the shift from a small-town environment to that of a major city. And what happens when you leave one of the smallest nations on the planet—with a population of around five million—to live in a country where Fogy’s adopted city holds approximately twenty million.

But, as usual, I have digressed.

Small towns, villages, and tight-knit communities are marked by the way everybody usually knows everybody—and everything you do is seen, talked about, and judged relentlessly. There's little scope for deviation from what's considered normal.

So if your behaviour is a little risqué, over the top, dubious, or too gay, don’t expect peace. Small-mindedness and strict rule-followers are what smaller communities tend to breed.

That tension—between conformity and freedom—is where anonymity finds its roots.

Midnight Cowboy—a film that helped shape 70s counterculture and is now a cult favourite—is the story of a small-town cowboy (Jon Voight) chasing his dream of making it big in the big city. He meets a limping, street-smart survivor—played by Dustin Hoffman—who guides him through the trials and tribulations of adjusting to a world that plays by very different rules.

It's a story that mirrors countless real lives.

So many around us have sought to express themselves in ways that would never have been accepted in their hometowns. Coming out among those who have already done so, or who have no knowledge of their past to judge them unfairly—or simply disappearing into the throng of similarly secretive saints, unwelcome elsewhere.

It's the freedom they sense—but there is more.

This need for anonymity is part of something deeper: the internal fight we all carry between what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is bad, what is evil and what is not. That eternal conflict exists in all of us—often hidden.

Sometimes, people are simply afraid of themselves.

Some have tasted the illicit side of life and become addicted to the thrill. And here, too, we return to the function of masks—something touched on in a previous post. It’s far easier to juggle those masks when you're relatively anonymous, floating through the seaways of night and day without the risk of bumping into familiar ships.

So—what were your reasons for coming to this great metropolis, if that's the case? Do you feel more freedom?

Or do you miss the quiet safety of a community where everyone knows you, warts and all?

Or is that… a secret?

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Hi mum, that's me in the middle