What I mean is, are you the same online as you are in real life?

Do you have, like I do, a special "telephone voice" that you use in business but is not really you?

How do you differ between circumstances, if you do?

I think I'm different everywhere I go. I'd be willing to bet that even the individual people here "see" a different me than others do. The "me" that Gail knows is different than the "me" that Amelia knows.

Weird.

I'm just not myself today.

Amelia you look like Mona Lisa
Cricket you look like adobe
Gail, you look like a bodyless yellow person

Chrys looks like adobe????

LOL Cute! Try Boticelli's Birth of Venus...

I've said for a long time that the idea of a 'unitary self' (which is a fancy way of saying 'you' or 'me') is an illusion that we have because it makes life simpler for us (and possibly also as an artefact of using language, but that's a more complex point for another discussion).

We could argue that there's some kind of 'core' personality, but certainly what comes out in any particular context will be different - whether that is online or 'in real life' (I prefer the term 'face-to-face', since I regard online life as still being real), or whether it's at church or at work or at home or with friends or out in the bush or...

I think a kind of rigid 'I'm the same person everywhere' attitude, far from being the honest way to be, just means that you will have no social skills and not be able to interact appropriately with those around you in different contexts.

Having said all that, I do believe it's possible for *all* of our different personas to be honest, ethical and authentic - it's when we have a persona that contravenes our core *values* that we move into hypocrisy and danger.

Adobe! Hehehe! Gail knows her Boticelli well!

Another question: are you the "you" that God had in mind when He created you? Have you veered off the path, or are you exactly where He hoped you'd be at this (and every) moment?

And if you're not the "you" that He intended you to be, then are you somehow a false version of yourself? What's holding you back from being the perfect child of God? Why hide under a false persona? Why hide under a bushel??

God didn't create me. He created Adam and then Eve. I'm just one of umpteen b'zillion morphed genes away from the fall of those prime ideal parents. I have no idea if I am a true or false version of myself since I don't know what my Father's original thought of me was.

I think I am sweeter and more thoughtful online than I really am! That's because I take time to ponder before I hit the submit button here. I don't have such a button on my mouth, though I am trying to grow one.