Userpics and nicknames

Thank you! There's a lot of deep stories behind userpics/avatars. I guess, however private you wish to be, they still radiate your personality. I understand now that the openness of face and name (den385 is just short of my real name and the number is just because simple`den` or `denis` is always already taken) should not be considered "the only correct way" by me. It is just one of them.

I think, using fantasies is a good for studying your inner world. I did it to - just not in userpics. For now, this way of inner discovery through fantasy images seems over for me. But it's all very subjective, very individual. That was my point of confusion.

As for me, I feel similar to @Darren:

Darren wrote: I just haven't felt the need to use another name here, it's always seemed like a place where I can be honest about who I am.

And that's because I really want to be honest and open in here, whatever someone can find out about me. That is my personal emphasis in userpic/avatar and it's nothing more than a personal emphasis. And, after all, I don't use my surname for privacy - so there are limits for everybody.

@Brenna, so, no, I think using real name/avatar is just one of the ways to practice openness and trust in the community.

den385 wrote: @Brenna, so, no, I think using real name/avatar is just one of the ways to practice openness and trust in the community.

den385, if you'll permit me to wax metaphysical for a moment:

Our Names are who we are. They are verbal representations of who we were, who we are now, and who we will be in the future. They are markers of destiny, they are guarantors of personality, and they are witnesses to the past. Everything that you are--everything about you, every thought you've ever had, every reaction you've ever had, every word you've ever spoken--it's all in your Name. Your Name is a catalog of your entire life, as seen without the constraints of time, and is the ultimate expression of who you are.

However, it is very important to note that our parents don't know our Names. Most of us don't even know our Names. We can't tell them, and our parents haven't seen who we truly are yet. So they give us lovely little legal "nicknames" that they can put on documents, things we can use later in life to sign bank statements, collect our salaries, rent cars, to "prove" who we are in court.

Those nicknames aren't our names. Those are just designations given to our bodies and our faces so that other people can differentiate us from themselves on the street.

My "legal name", Mitchell, is not my Name. It isn't who I am. It never has been. It never will be. But it's what my parents and the law call me. For a small fee, I can change it to something that better represents me, but that wouldn't be my Name either.

My username here, steamboat28, is just as much my "name" as my legal designation of "Mitchell." It no more represents who I am than my legal designation, and (in fact) is just another mask my Name wears. Like different clothes for a different party, my Name dresses itself up based on who I meet. Some call me other nicknames, some call me my legal "nickname", some call me my username.

But none of these is Who I Am. The entire journey of our lives is discovering our Name, for that Name represents our purpose and our truest self.

So when I go by "steamboat28" here instead of "Mitchell", it isn't because I'm not being open, and it isn't because I don't trust (all my personal information is a matter of public record, easily accessible, but none of it will tell you Who I Am.) It's because I feel that for these purposes, this Name-mask is as good as any other, since not even I've seen its true face.

The name ''Aqua'' refers to the water. I have experienced many things, and every time I came back alive.. As people can read in one of my posts:

Aqua`s Journal: Aqua: ,,I was born two months earlier than expected, to this I had a collapsed lung at birth and cardiac arrest a few days later. The resulted in asthma and pneumonia.''

When I was about five I guess, I tinkered with a nail into a wall outlet, resulting in a huge shock from around 220 Volt. Many years later I had a similar, less dangerous, experience with a shock from a open hand dryer.

At the age of eight I was almost drowned in the Mediterranean sea near a pier, stuck in seaweed, and some time later I had problems with an compass saw machine, at that time it was a huge thing and I could not find the off button and was shaking with it, almost lost my left arm, glad that did not happen.

Due to flexible recovery and adaptability during these and other situations; I picked the name Aqua as my community name.

Robinson Jeffers: ,,The tides are in our veins.''

@steamboat28 - what you're saying sounds like works of Ursula Le Guine, where magic worked out of knowledge of "true names".

I think, it's a good Jedi meditation topic - 'learn your name' treated as 'learn who you are'.

For me it is still hard to compile all of my entity in one single word. I don't know myself that good for now. I've done similar work when I chose my tattoos - you wouldn't believe me how much I was determined to do the right ones.

den385 wrote: @steamboat28 - what you're saying sounds like works of Ursula Le Guine, where magic worked out of knowledge of "true names".

It is. But Ursula didn't invent that concept, she just borrowed it.

@steamboat28 - I guess it's something she got from Tao Te Ching then, she seems to be deep in it - even wrote here own commented version of it.

den385 wrote: @steamboat28 - I guess it's something she got from Tao Te Ching then, she seems to be deep in it - even wrote here own commented version of it.

It's also a very Western magical tradition.