What is it to be seen? How many of us go through life without anyone knowing who we are as a person? For some people, this might have been a choice at one point, they want to live unbothered, under the radar. For others, this life was enforced upon them, they want to be in the sunlight, but were pushed back into the shadows.
For myself, I have done my best to not be seen for large portions of my life. Don’t attract attention, do not be noticed, blend into the background noise, forget I was ever hereThat way, I won’t be called upon to do something I am uncomfortable with, I won’t make a mistake and be ridiculed, I won’t be the target for anger, I won’t open myself up to fail.
If you do this long enough, you can become more successful than you ever realized. You fade so much into the background that you can no longer be seen. You occupy no space, you make no sound, people see right through you.
You are a shade drifting through the world.
As an experiment in high school, I once didn’t speak for three days unless directly spoken to. No one noticed.
When you finally realize that you want to be seen, that you want someone toacknowledge that you are there, your cry out for help is just a whisper. You no longer know how to make noise, to keep someone’s attention. Your voice is just gets lost in the surrounding cacophony. You don’t know how to ask for help because you don’t know who you are anymore. How can you help a shadow?
When I no longer wanted to go unnoticed, I tried to reinvent myself. I constantly dyed my hair, I switched my glasses to contacts, I wore more unusual clothing and pierced my ears. However, I didn’t just change the surface. I adopted a looser, wilder personality to the point where people who didn’t know me thought I had fallen into drugs. I invented a persona and confidence for myself and wore it like a costume. After a while, I actually started to become the person I invented for myself, an introvert trapped inside an extrovert’s body. All of this, just to connect. A chance for someone to notice me, or, if I was lucky, to actually be seen. To have someone know me.
Despite being connected in so many ways, through technology, media, and travel possibilities, people are dealing with a sense of isolation more and more. So people are doing all they can to be seen and acknowledged, even if it is for just a brief moment. For some, this means laying out their life on social media, broadcasting their personalities in the hopes of someone important taking notice, for others, it might mean hurting themselves or others to receive some attention. Either way, what often results is pain.
There is a pain epidemic happening in the world right now, one that people are treating using any method possible; opioids, alcohol, and marijuana are all increasingly common for treating the bodily pain. But there is also the pain of self – being treated on the surface through acquiring material goods, media consumption, and through rigorous self-improvement plans. It seems clear though that not all people are finding sufficient treatment, as some are expressing that pain outward by inflicting physical or emotional violence on self or others. The physical violence is evident in the number of gun deaths each year in North America and ever-increasing amounts of hate crimes and domestic violence situations. The emotional violence is done through trolling and bullying online, intimidation tactics, a deeply flawed justice system, and the denial of historical and present freedoms.
So what does all of this have in common? People are united by their feeling of being lost and their sense of not being seen. Whether that is real or their perspective doesn’t really matter to them, as the pain is there regardless. It is a shared experience, but not one that brings any sense of unity, in fact, it is yet another thing breaking people apart at this time.
Women, racial minorities, and the LGBTQ2 community have been working for a long time for their voice to be heard. Their historical perspective was often obscured or unacknowledged, as the men in power determined the lens on how they were viewed. For the marginalized people, this is their first glimpse of the sunlight, but for many men, it is a lot more crowded in this space than they are used to. They are still receiving the same amount of sunlight, but for those not used to sharing the space, they perceive it as they are being pushed into the shadows. How many long overdue reckonings are happening right now, and how many more are to come? For many, this is well-deserved justice for behaviour that isn’t acceptable in the modern world, for heterosexual white men this is yet another layer of doubt about a progressive society that is moving along without them.
So as this dynamic very slowly shifts, as more voices are heard and listened to, how does this affect the population that is used to being the only voice?
As with any period of progress, there is always a backlash.
Men are struggling to know their place, they feel lost in a society that no longer always needs the qualities they have developed. They look for a way to re-establish their confidence and sense of empowerment, so they latch onto groups that give them a sense of belonging and purpose. Unfortunately, so many of these groups are not united to build something, but to tear down, to reverse progress. You see this in the re-emergence of the white supremacist groups and the growth of the alt-right in North America and Europe, men lashing out at whatever group they can blame for their problems; women, children, minorities, immigrants, and the LGBTQ2 community. Turning to extremes is rare, but there is a general sense of unease and worry among men who don’t know their place anymore. Some turn to drugs and alcohol as mentioned above while others push for men-only areas professionally or socially. The gamergate situation was a good example of this, where a space becomes openly hostile to women and others because men believe that they have a sole right to a hobby, or interest, or profession.
A lot of this has a lot to do with men no longer having the proper emotional tools to deal with modern society. The marginalized people had to constantly adapt as the rules changed and bent to prevent them from pushing forward. Men on the other hand consciously or unconsciously chose not to evolve and share the space, but instead work to keep the systems that benefited them in place. All parties want to be seen and heard and men are used to competing with each other for this right, but now there are a lot more voices.
Some men have recognized that a progressive society is good for everyone, that once everyone has the tools and avenue to succeed, the population all benefits from the rising tide. It means a better economy due to increased participants, more innovation from the influx of talent, and more services available but less help needed. It means a loosening of societal restrictions as laws and regulation are no longer as important in enforcing a fair society, that is instead done through a learned practice taught through generations. This is a recognition that there is plenty of room in the sunlight, that just because someone else walks out of the shade it doesn’t mean you receive less sun.
However, to get to this progressive society, some major changes are needed first, and those that don’t adapt and learn could fall in the process. Those that want to keep thesystems of oppression in place will be toppled and replaced by those who see better options ahead. It is a learned process over time, men who have gained insight or empathy through intimate connections with those that they might have previously not understood. It is about putting aside their pride for a moment so that they can listen without judgement, interruption, or anger. The realization that not everything in this world has to be about them is a crucial point to grasp, and one that can be incredibly freeing. As that understanding grows, those that are marginalized will hopefully encounter less resistance in their climb and another step forward is gained. As more men can truly pay attention to and see the people around them, they too can find some clarity within themselves to see who they are. This is the journey that I am on, and I hope others can join me in this process.
Leave a Reply