|
I gaze into the screen, and see the names of a dozen people I have never met. And yet I know each of them well. Dozens of people, each with his or her own hopes and dreams, wishes and ambitions. Each person living a life that, for them, has gone horribly wrong. Each person turning to the anonymity and freedom of the technological marvel known as the World Wide Web. Each person, like myself, seeking to be something different than who they are.
With little more than a few movements of my wrist, or a click or two with my index finger, I can travel anywhere in the world, or out of it, or beyond it. I can do anything. I can be anything. Even a god. And hundreds of thousands of other people, all across the world, can do the same. We can all be who we were meant to be, on the Internet. Evolution and biology have no power here. Transformation and metamorphosis are the only rules. We are who we make ourselves to be, created in our own image.
I have a friend who is a dragon. She has irridescent purple scales, and can speak by telepathy. I ride on her back sometimes, and together we see how high we can fly, how close we can get to the sun. She says it gives her a sense of power, of being special, of coming closer to Heaven than mortal men might dare. And if only for those fleeting moments, she finds happiness.
It has been some time since I have seen my dragon friend online. I fear that she flew too close to the sun one day, and like Icarus lost her wings.
The happiness on the Internet is a balance to the tragedy in reality. People like me, who cannot cope with their own lives, invent fictions that they can deal with much easier. And when one fantasy is no longer enough to hide the pain, we create another. One fiction melds seamlessly with another. I don't judge. I myself am guilty of such fantasizing. I know that my soul is trapped in a body that is just not right. God chose to create me in a form that I do not belong in. So I make use of the anonymous nature of the Internet to be who I want to be, to be who I truly should have been. I redefine myself, my electronic exterior reflecting the image of my soul. I transform myself into what I feel I should have been, what I know I should have been. I create myself. We are all God, in one way or another. We are all creators, though not on the same scale that He is. And while He may be such a perfect Creator, more and more often I meet people like myself. Imperfect. Wrong.
I have another friend, one I met several months ago, who is a female cat. She doesn't know why she was born as a human male, but knows without a shadow of doubt in her mind that she should have been born a female cat, and that something went wrong. She says that if she could transform into her true form, she would do so in a heartbeat. She doesn't believe God had anything to do with her species dysphoria, though. She doesn't believe in God. But she does enjoy curling up in my lap, and she likes it when I scratch her beneath her chin, and pet her, and call her pretty names. She finds no solace in the concept of a Perfect Creator and an imperfect creation, but instead finds peace and happiness in being a cat, if only for a few hours, if only in fiction.
So many people, so many different things. Each with their own hopes and dreams... gender dysphoric, species dysphoric... life dysphoric. On the Internet, we are our own creators. We are our own Gods. Deep down inside, we know it to be a lie. Eventually, we must all face reality. And those who cannot do so, inevitably choose instead to fly into the sun.
For some, it is pretend. For others, it is life. When we ourselves are wrong, who is to say what is right? I try to believe in a perfect God, but when surrounded by imperfection, when my own body is an imperfection, it is so very hard. On the Internet, I can be who I was meant to be. On the World Wide Web, I can be free. Others may tell me I am wrong, or judge me. But no one but myself may know my own soul. Deep down inside, I know who I am. And it is not this piece of flesh that sits here, in an air conditioned room, in front of a computer screen. I know that I am so much more. I wish every day that I had been born in a body that fit my soul.
I sigh, and continue to gaze into the screen. Sometimes, I wish to God that I had been born with legs.
|
