wolven7 | Names

These Two posts have coincided with some thoughts I've been having, lately, on naming. What is, in fact, in a name? A name is a signifier, a descriptor of the contents of of a physical package or presented collection of ideas arranged along certain lines of continuity and concurrence. A name picks out a personality and, ostensibily, a person.

Tool - [Jambi]--- At Dragon*Con, someone asked me what "Wolven" was, and I responded "A Handle." And then, because I'm me, I thought about how true that is. It is my name, and my name is a handle. It is the mechanism by which you Get Ahold Of Me. "Getting Ahold Of" someone is an interesting phrase, and asking, "How can I get ahold of you?" is really a very personal and impertinent question, when we seriously start to parse it down. It is basically asking "How Can I Insinuate Myself Around You, Such That You Are Available To My Needs, When I Want You To Be?" Isn't that a little creepy?

So when i said that Wolven is my handle, I was being litteral. It's... part of me that you can grab and, with the right information, use to pull me to you, or open me up and find out more about me, or "get in touch with" me. (Prodigy - [Fire]). These things are all functions of names, be they Usernames, "Real" names, "Magickal" names, or whatever. The prinicple of naming has always been about having power over a thing, knowing what to call it to get it to come to you, and if you name yourself, then you are saying that only you know the full nuances and meanings of who and what you are. Even if you hand part of that off to someone else, then you are still only giving them a partial map by which to chart you.

cEvin Key – [Frozen Sky (w/ Ogre)]--- Your name, your handle, your screening name, your pseudonym, your birth name. All of these provide a matrix of identity and, as I've said in the past, the more you know about me, the more you can know about me. The more you can accurately correlate the pieces that I share with you, the more you can weave a fuller picture of the unique thing that is Me. Giving you the ability to do this is a kind of trust, because I am opening up more and more of my history, of myself to you, for scrutiny. (Tori Amos – Precious Things). That being said, I can understand why simply handing over those pieces by connecting livejournal, facebook, twitter, etc, is an unwelcome idea, for many.

Think about what you're asking from people, when you ask them to identify themselves, to you.

I need to go to a Doctor's Appointment.

Later