Why does one opt to live in public?
What can one take from it?
Lots actually:
- Prestige in a small circle
- Fame in a wider audience
- A sense of being seen
- A sense of being part of something bigger
- Being fully expressed
- Money
Given the many benefits of living in public, perhaps the more interesting question to ask here is:
Why would anyone not live in public?
Can living in public be intrinsically rewarding?
For sharing or living in public to be psychologically healthy (but what even constitutes this?), it has to be intrinsically rewarding. Is that possible?
Yes, it can be. But we have to transform (or perhaps return) the meaning of sharing to what it really means: helping.
Helping is both intrinsically rewarding and extrinsically rewarding. The act of helping itself feels good. Then when we see the difference we make in other people’s lives, we feel good again via extrinsic rewards. But even if our efforts are not well taken, the act of helping itself was already intrinsically rewarding and so it doesn’t matter if we are recognized. Fortunately for us, humans usually appreciate help and therefore respond to it favorably.
I find that this is the biggest motivation for me to share. If I look at sharing as a way to help, this transforms what I share and how I share it. If I simply share something I did for fun without editing or thinking about the other person, I am simply being true to my self-expression, but not really sharing to help. It is intrinsically rewarding, but not extrinsically rewarding. And this is why I think, I should make a clear distinction in my process between simply expressing (similar to Rem’s bulwak) and editing (Rem’s balong). There are creative artifacts whose main purpose is to be ephemeral vehicles for expression (e.g., diary entries and Talahardin notes in development stages). But there are artifacts that are best when they are edited after they are expressed.
The reason we share is to be part of a community who shares knowledge...we learned and became better people because someone shared something. If we want to live in a world where these amazing things happen, we have to share.