Identity is perhaps one of the most superficial, and fleeting images of this world. Yet we treat it, as if it were made from concrete.
I’ am not going to bore you to death with details of my person. I don’t care and you surely don’t. Most of us take their identity for granted, and attach importance to it. It hinges on a fingerprint, a DNA code, a photograph, a family history, a goofy smile, whatever. We deal with our identity like with a mathematic constant, although every bit of evidence seems to indicate we are everything but static. The great Spanish Poet Antonio Machado rightfully compared one’s life with a fleeting keel track lost in the blue ocean.Trying to find myself, I turn to ‘Google’. I type in ‘Franz Kessler’ and examine today’s catch.
The first historic Franz Kessler I get hold of was a genius. He lived in the 16th and 17th century Germany. He invented the telescope, wireless data transmission, and the diving bell. There was little scope for his inventions in the little German microstates of those days. Tiny and fragmented chiefdoms one almost could shout from one end to the other end, and nobody was interested in the murky and shallow waters of rivers and lakes.
The first living Franz Kessler I scroll and click is a businessman. He spams the web with his sophisticated state-of-the-art electric motor advertizing. His homepage shows a neat factory, surrounded by fields and forests in a green valley. Now I’ am starting to feel jealous, and project myself into his life. It’s a lovely warm day in May. Flavor from cherry blossoms and fresh manure smell from nearby fields fill the air. I drive to my factory in the latest Mercedes or seven series BMW. The charming, elegant secretary assistant in red miniskirts opens me the door. Her sensual perfume hits my nose like a baseball bat. Then she asks with a friendly smile, and a voice full of promises: “Good morning, chief, can I brew you a fresh, strong coffee, the way you like it…” timeout, dream over.
I upclick the next guy with my name. He is a gardener. Tranquility radiates from a simple web page, a gentle face and the dominant color is green. A friendly man, whose life appears peacefully vegetarian. I, too, would love to talk more often to my hibiscus plants, caress my roses, and plant salad seeds with love.
Googling down the next Franz Kessler page I meet yet another fellow who dares to use my name. His title is five inch long, and the place of action is Austria. It’s a mountainous country in the center of old Europe. The Austrians love personal titles, the longer the better. It’s a place, where happy cows chew up green mountain meadows, and everybody yodels in lederhosen. This Austrian Franz Kessler is a drilling engineer and finds pleasure drilling holes through mountains with remote-controlled, massive drilling robots. Wow! This sounds like fun, too. This might be the ultimate adult toy! I would love to poke holes through mountains, until they look like Swiss cheese. Then I would peek into the blue alpine sky, and pretend to have achieved a useful task.
The next ‘Google’ Franz Kessler is a man of the Church. He served the pope John 23rd. His face looks earnest, simple, and good. I would have loved to meet this man, but he died already. Why can’t I have a simple life, devoting my energy to God, and pay service to the needy?
On page four I meet and click another Franz Kessler. He lives up in Wyoming near Jackson Hole, rents bed and breakfast with his lovely wife Carol and kids. This would be my dream too! Why did I ever leave my mountains, chase around the globe to search for oil in tropical, mosquito-infested swamps and desolate desserts? Only to find charming, little ladies with exotic smelling skin instead? I rather go and live up on my mountain with lovely Carol and enjoy the sunrise over snowy mountains and glaciers hand-in-hand.
Enough of this, let’s stop the Internet mania. What does this goofy story tell? Well, arbitrarily, and with a bit of fantasy, I might be any of these above guys. In my younger years I used to glue a passport-size pictures on a piece of paper, and observed my changing face as years went by. When the page was finally full, I realized I looked at a bunch of different persons. Anyone’s identity may be much larger and sparkling, than we ever may realize – we all too often limit ourselves, and our fantasies, by sticking to an agglomeration of pseudo-fact we take for identity.(c) 2004 by Franz L Kessler
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Reviewed by Vesna Perkovic
2/7/2004
.....indeed..you are a man who doesn't need identity..you simply ARE!!!
Franz, very interesting story. During my Internet search, I discovered that someone else named "Carmel Victor" was a man, and is still alive with children. I knew I could probably find someone else with my first name, but I didn't think it was going to be a member of the opposite sex. More and more I realize that identity is more on the inside.
Reviewed by Donni De-Ville
1/6/2004
I have often thought it sad, that as age creeps on, the physical changes, regarding the image, one is used to seeing and living with, keeps changing too.
On meeting some friends, only kept in touch with through emails and phone calls, that they have changed so much that I might not have recognised them in the street! This is very disorientating! As must be with some married couples, when they find out their spouses look nothing like the image they were attracted to in the first place. I'm not talking about a few wrinkles or lines, somehow facial features can totally resemble someone entirely new.
All we have is what we know inside. And even that is fragile as we discover that we can not trust our own judgments, sometines. If we can not trust ourselves, who, here on earth, can we trust?
Love the way you write, Franz!
Donni-Jay
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