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I’m just on the road same as you. No different.

Is your name really Ely?

No.

You don’t want to say your name.

I don’t want to say it.

Why?

I couldn’t trust you with it. To do something with it. I don’t want anybody talking about me. To say where I was or what I said when I was there. I mean, you could talk about me maybe. But nobody could say that it was me. I think in times like these the less said the better. If something had happened and we were survivors and we met on the road then we’d have something to talk about. But we’re not. So we don’t.

That’s from The Road. Cormac McCarthy. So what of this Facebook silliness, this “sort-of” transparency into a life? How is it different than any other form of communication in which each of us, in our own particular ways, presents to the world a version of self?

I suppose it isn’t. Perhaps the reply might come, “Who the fuck ever said it was?” But if it isn’t then why is it such a phenomenon? Is it just because it’s a podium, a virtual mind-space in which to say, “Hey, this is me, damnit! Please stop considering me in ways in which I am not projecting myself. This is who I consider myself to be so stop characterizing me as something other than who I believe I am?"?

But, then again, it’s always been a free-flowing pastime to make up one's individual self as one navigates through life over years and decades. But we also say, even if only to ourselves, “This is who I am and, well, I think that guy is like that and that woman is kind of something different than either this or that. She’s more like a little-of-this-and-a-lot-of-that." No matter how right or wrong any one of us is about how another is categorized, we each create worlds in which we are located in relation to others who exist as we imagine them to be rather than as they actually exist.

So, if I haven’t seen you for twenty years then my conception of you will likely be a variant of who you are based on who you were as I misunderstood you then. But, of course, because I know that I have too little evidence to make a new haphazard misjudgment of you, I remind myself that anything I might imagine is likely to be wrong.

Still, what else do I have to go by? Well, in the case of Facebook, I have what you are now saying about yourself, about what you do, what interests you, what you value, what you believe, what you dream, how badly you hurt yourself the last time you blew your nose, why you like kittens so damn much, when you first lost your virginity (and to whom), and whether or not you regret spending $4000 on a toboggan while you were living in the desert. You did regret that, by the way. Not that anyone has shared doing that exactly, but I know every person has done something equally ridiculous. Each person on Facebook should probably write a personal note about embarrassingly foolish decisions. Not so much an assignment as a considerate gift, a sign of appreciation for imperfection.

I mean, I’m trapped in my own body rather than yours so no matter how annoying I may be at any given moment, just imagine what it’s like being me 24-7. It’s no small task, I can assure you. I am brutally hard on myself. I have knees that have twisted out of alignment to make up for the worn-down cartilage. My body screams at me, “Motherfucker! You had better get something to eat right now or I am going to put you through so much misery that you will pray for death. Do you think I’m fucking around here, man? Cause I am gonna hurt you!” Then my body proceeds to exact a torture on itself all while my inner John Yoo proclaims, “No, this is not torture at all. The Geneva Convention on Human Rights does not apply to your biology. This is the justice of nature. So … fuck you!”

Meanwhile, there has been a growing chorus of “me’s” assembling somewhere dark within the core of my being and they have been plotting a coup. They’ve got a hell of a plan … or so they tell “me.” Which “me,” you ask? This fellow is a neutral observer. Let’s call him “Stan.” Why Stan? Well, why not? Stan doesn’t seem like the sort of guy who would get involved in anything untoward. And he thinks it all has the possibility of becoming untoward. Who am “I” writing this? Let’s just say I’m Stan’s assistant. Yes, the “me” who observes has an assistant. Does Stan tell me what to do? No. I interpret. So, I’m Stan’s interpreter and his assistant.

It should be noted that Stan has no interest at all in being interpreted. It’s just that … well, I can tell Stan knows more than all of the other “me’s” combined because … he knows all the other “me’s” combined … and as individuals … and in relation to some and not others … as well as others and not some.

When I’m this deep in the maze of the “whole” me, a “me” which might be best described as the “universe of me,” I may as well call the "whole me" ... “God.” The omniscience and omnipotence of "God" is accessible only from particular “me’s.” "God" cannot just be nor can it ever be known or understood let alone conveyed to others as a reductive representation of what is unknown and unknowable!

What every “I” within me must do is admit that "God" is an unknowable mystery. Nevertheless, I continue to map my self (aka "God") from various vantage points. I have a team of researchers working 24/7 working on why I wet my bed when I was four years old. They’re making tremendous progress. The early guesstimates were that I was too afraid of the dark to go to the bathroom, but upon further study it appears that I may have wanted to remain cozy and warm and that I was, essentially, too tired to get up. Yet, I couldn’t hold it in.

The consequences of this action turned out to be rather minor. However, researchers are interested in minutiae as much as the big events. Still, resources have to be allocated. For example, there is a “me,” let's call him Mel, who is so old and crotchety that none of the other "me's" ever want to be around him. He’s always bitching and moaning about this, that, and the other. So, a “me” that functions as a manager of “me’s” sent him to a dungeon in my mind and ordered him to keep track of what I do with my keys whenever I put them down somewhere. Mel, he never forgets anything. Yeah, he’s obsessive and he just can’t let things go, but when he’s assigned to a task like remembering the keys he is a tremendous asset. It was a real boon to discover this because I had inadvertently allowed Mel to do whatever he wanted and he began obsessing about an injustice that occurred in Mesopotamia thousands of years ago. If I would have allowed him to continue running amok I might have wasted my entire life examining a triviality from a time long past.

But, then again, there’s another "me" who continues to say, “It doesn’t matter, man. Triviality? Meaningfulness? Same thing. You’re fooling yourself if you think there’s any point to anything at all. Words that suggest otherwise? Beliefs that suggest otherwise? Lies. All lies.” Now, what have I done with that “me”? He’s busy trying to anticipate the next number of pi. It’s really transformed him. He admits—finally!—that he really doesn’t know if anything is meaningful or not. He can’t find a pattern that will tell him one way or the other. At any rate, getting him outside of his relatively meager mind has led to a personal transformation … within that particular "me."

But what happened to the “old me”? I’m still not sure what happens to the past “me’s” I no longer am. Do they disappear into the ether? Exist in an alternate universe? I hope not. Sounds like hell, actually. Maybe that’s all hell is: A time and a place when and where self never changes.