A personal bubble of being

I have never fully understood the concept of privacy. I don't understand the whole not-wanting-people-to-know mindset. I was always this loud mouth you didn't want to be friends with. Back in school, girls started giving me false/controversial information so I could spread it by not keeping shut. Or, maybe, that's a version of my past in my head. I'm certain I was used around a lot and yes, this happened too. My mom's frequent visits to the Principal's office would vouch for it personally. Do you sometimes add a pinch of fiction to your life too? I like being whoever I want to be. In fact, I am excellent at gatekeeping my occupation to strangers I know I'll never meet. I remember being at Ziro Festival of Music, and introducing

myself as four different selves in just two hours. One moment, I was an apiculturist (I'd worn large florals, a hat and knee high boots- I just fit the description of my fictional job! :P), the other moment, I was studying aeronautical engineering in Ernakulum and had come all the way to Arunachal because we had a term break. This one time, I pretended to be someone's childhood friend from Meerut who I was meeting after 6 years, and he played along with me to add to the fun! It just made for such an interesting story. I love it when people don't know how I am.

I have a tendency to judge, very quickly, who I may or may not bump into again. Sometimes, I disclose I was pretending to have fun, the other times, I let them believe they met an epic person. Come on, if I could make someone believe I am this Chef who's come to learn how to cook pork like Apatanis do, I am an epic person. I am also the most useless person whilst in a kitchen.

It's the same for social media. You don't know me. You don't know this other person. But, you believe them. Some bullshit, we can see through, yes. But mostly, we are gullible enough to believe a lot of what we see while scrolling endlessly on a damned app the whole day. We are all believing some or the other story. We believe a story, not a person. We also believe in stories, not because of how interesting they are, but because of how they're written. Every sentence is a bait. I've been a really public person for as long as I've known. That's also the reason I have this blog- people read it. People, who know of this website's existence, through my socials. I could easily be writing a journal but I chose this digital space. Is it because I want people to know I'm still around? Or, because I like opening my laptop at 6 in the morning to type out what I'm feeling? There's no privacy to my thoughts, is there? Well, this is okay. A single chain of thoughts is reason enough to blabber. I've received as much attention as I wanted and I've grown out to be a better version of myself over the last year. Had I not lost travel to the pandemic, I wouldn't have grown as differently as I have. To have finally understood the difference between what can be kept and what can be shared, has changed quite a few things, for me. I occasionally notify the world about how I feel but I no longer flaunt my relationship online. There is absolutely no validation that it needs. I do not mean to say, that my previous relationships needed validation and hence, I wrote about them. No, I'm merely pointing out that it's so miraculously soulful that I don't need talk about it with another person at all. It's like when you have that favourite meal and your eyebrows just shoot up in approval, or when your eyes sparkle when someone gives you a good news, or when you cry the minute you realise you're finally three feet away from your goals. Our love, gives me that same joy, every minute of the day. And, this is the one thing that should be kept only for me. Of course, the world is allowed a peek into my bubble, but it's upto me to stay in it till I burst it open. I think now I do understand privacy now. Maybe it's about the things or facts or secrets you're so attached to, that you're willing to keep them with you, because of just how precious they are to you. I've shared so many waking moments of my life online; feelings, moments, experiences, mishaps, lessons, free advice and tips- so much! And it's only now, years later, that I recognise my inner circle, my bubble of energies and it's not like, I'm protecting it. It doesn't need protection, it doesn't need TLC. It's just whole. It's great the way it is, and all changes it sees are the changes it'll see. I wouldn't have to talk about it, I wouldn't have to keep count- it's just unintentional, inevitable growth.

I remember mentioning how nice it is to not be known. To just be a speck of dust in the vastness that is our world, and to flow freely into the unknown. I stand by it. Privacy, interestingly, is liberating. It isn't a pressure, or a bane. It isn't a hideout, or a burrow. It's my personal bubble of just being.

It's a wonderland. And baby, I am Alice.