Heroes Not Zombies

This collection of mailboxes in the hallway of a building in Marseilles caught my eye. I was really taken by the diversity of the collection and the uniqueness of each box. Usually mailboxes at the entrance to a building look pretty much the same. Often they are an array of identical boxes, distinguished only by numbers, or, slightly better, nameplates. But here it seems everyone chose and placed their own box.

This image says something similar to the ones I used yesterday, the ones of a meadow of diverse, glorious colourful flowers. But it brings something else to the table. There is a clear element of individual expression here. Not only has each person chosen their own style of box, but everyone has labelled and/or decorated them according to their own preference. By doing that they are presenting something of their uniqueness, their singularity, to the world.

It was only much later that another thought occurred to me – maybe these are not functioning mailboxes at all. I mean, look at the large wooden one with the label, “Galerie Accord” on it. Does it even have a slot to post mail into? Maybe it does. Maybe it’s in the top where I can’t see it, but noticing the got me wondering. The box declaring “Osteopathe”, for example, seems to have a bell push under it. That’s a bit unusual, isn’t it? But the one at the bottom, marked “B Aegerter” says – no advertising materials please – so, it’s definitely a mailbox.

Well, whether they are functioning mailboxes, or fancy nameplates, it does strike me that this is a great example of the diversity of human expression. Which got me wondering – what “face” do we present to the world? And, how do we present that “face”?

How about you? How do you present yourself to the world? I’m not just thinking of the way we present an “image” or a “front”. I mean more than that. I mean how do you express yourself to the world? Do you think you don’t? Well, the truth is, you do. We all do. We do it through our behaviour, our actions, our words, our choices and preferences, the way we dress, how we furnish, decorate and live in our homes, the way we eat. If you are alive, you are expressing yourself. Do you ever stop to think about that? To wonder what you are “putting out there? To wonder what impacts your life is having on the world? To wonder what ripples of information, energy and substances you are sending out, just by the way you live?

It also makes me think about how we connect. How we choose to connect. There are so many ways now, aren’t there? Not many people communicate only by letter any more. Although in a recent critique of the difficulties which have emerged during the pandemic in France, there was a description of how the two main, most devolved parts of government here, the “Prefecture” and the “Mairie” (I won’t go into the technical details of who does what here), the relationships between the people in these two organisations are described as “epistolary” – they write each other letters. The article quoted mayors (who are elected to work in the town hall, or “mairie”) as saying they had never ever even spoken to the “prefect” (who runs the “prefecture”) on the telephone, let alone having ever met. Kind of astonishing really. Yet the government claims the duo of the “mairie-prefecture” is apparently the key to the delivery of national policies in local areas.

However, not many of us only communicate through letters now, and postcards have all but disappeared (apart from on the stands outside newsagents) – do people still buy them? Do they send them, or collect them in a box? Or do they just take photos with their mobile phone and share them online now?

How do you like to connect to the world?

Phone calls? Text messages? Video calls? WhatsApp? Messenger? What about Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr? Facebook or Twitter? TikTok or Youtube? Goodness, that’s only scratching the surface, isn’t it? But I’m not focussing on the exploration of tools here. I’m wondering about how we present ourselves to the world, and how we connect. I’m wondering if we present different aspects of ourselves when we use those different tools? I know all us have a “multiplicity of selves”, that we assume different roles in different situations and relationships. But how is that translating into the world now, with this explosion of channels and tools?

Do you present and/or express yourself differently through different channels? If you do, (and I’m going to bet that you DO), can you see the over all picture? Can you imagine what your “wall of mailboxes” would look like if it was a collection of they ways you present and express yourself? Your WhatsApp here, your Facebook there, your Twitter here, your Instagram there….and so on.

I don’t have answers to these questions. I’m just wondering….

But as I wonder about it, what about “feeds” and “streams”? I know there are ways to collect various feeds and streams to scroll through them as a collection, (I use Flipboard for example), but is there a similar kind of service or tool for expression and connection? Rather than for just “consuming”?