What comes to mind when you hear the word “naked”? When I hear it, my brain automatically associates it with something inappropriate, which then makes me question myself further about this one-sided thought that I have as it contradicts with my belief of being open-minded. Why do we tend to make this word sound worse than it actually is? Instead of just inappropriateness, I start to look at this word in a new light, meaning that my brain now equally connects this word to two different meanings, instead of just one. It’s not like I’m not aware that this word could mean various things depending on the context, I’m just saying that in general, there seems to be a greater tendency for people, including myself, to associate this word with something inappropriate. Thanks to my insightful friend who provided me another perspective about this word and made me think that instead of sounding inappropriate, it actually sounds very innocent and pure. Just imagine when babies are born. They are all naked and pure because they know nothing of the world yet and this is where their journey of constructing their identities in the world begin.
The reason why I brought this up is because I had an
interesting conversation with a good friend of mine that she has this one
friend whose personality she described as “naked”. According to my friend,
nakedness is different from honesty, which I agree, as nakedness is transparency
without any filter based solely on the person’s feelings and thoughts, while
honesty is based on more or less on a fact according to the person’s
perspective and judgement, so there’s still some kind of filter. This got me
curious of whether such person really exists because to me, a person who has
naked personality must be without layers at all, meaning that the person can say
anything that comes to his or her mind without the fear of judgement – good or
bad, or the combination of both.
Because each and everyone is unique and has his or her own
complexity, no one can understand each other 100%. Therefore, the authenticity
of nakedness is stuck in my head of whether there is such a thing. Can we be as
naked as when we were babies? To me, the answer is no because we can’t undo
what has been done, we can only move forward, and each step that we take, each experience
that we encounter make us build up layers, sometimes to protect ourselves and
sometimes to define who we are as a person, burying the nakedness somewhere
underneath. As we grow older, it becomes harder for us to return to our
nakedness, which some of us never knew it exists in the first place. Therefore, my final
question is, with all that is going in the world, how naked can we be without
the fear of consequences?
Are you naked with yourself, with others, with both, or with no one at all?
How do you know?
Does such level of authenticity exist?
If yes, how do you define it?
Perhaps the true nakedness exists after all,
But how naked can we be in the world full of masks?
DW
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