What does it mean to be known? I’ve been thinking a lot about how we all tend to project images of ourselves and how we all tend to create images of others. It’s something that compels me to get to know people on a more real basis, but it also compels me to be as genuine and authentic as I can be.
In the realm of online dating there’s a term for the blatant disregard of these concerns—catfishing. The term comes from the great documentary, Catfish, which follows a guy named Nev who is unfortunately lied to by a woman who’s not really who she claims to be in her online dating profile (sorry for the spoiler!). The documentary was so popular that MTV took it up and turned it into a very successful (and terrifying!) TV show because this sort of thing happens all the time (and it even happened to me in high school! A story I’ll tell next time…). I’m convinced that although “big C” catfishing is an interesting social phenomenon, we need to self-critically consider the various and subtle ways in which we all catfish each other on a regular basis (what I call “small c” catfishing).
I want to say more about this, and I will in a few weeks, but before I focus on how we attempt to know others and how we want to be known by others in a world full of catfishing, I want to consider God’s knowledge of us. He’s the only one who knows us truly and isn’t fooled by our catfishing towards him in times of worship or prayer. If authenticity is to be valued with other people, how much more should it be valued with God? For those of us who value honesty and integrity, and desire that in all of our personal relationships, I think it starts with our vulnerability before God.
A song by twenty one pilots immediately comes to mind at this point. If you didn’t know already, twenty one pilots is très legit. They’re a genre-defying eclectic mix of punk, dance, indie, rap, post-hardcore, and folk. The frontman of the band, Tyler Joseph, is also quite the wordsmith. However, the song that I want to comment on here, “Goner,” is actually quite simple lyrically. Yet in its simplicity it is very profound.
Here’s a live video recording of “Goner”:
And here’s the official audio recording of “Goner.”
“Goner” is the final track on their most recent album, Blurryface. Within the album the concept of “Blurryface” represents Joseph’s conflicting inner turmoil. It’s the part of him “that cares what you think” as he sings in the song Stressed Out. In the final track, “Goner,” this internal conflict reaches a prayerful climax. Joseph sings,
I’m a goner, somebody catch my breath,
I’m a goner, somebody catch my breath,
I want to be known by you,
I want to be known by you.
Then a little later on he sings,
I’ve got two faces, blurry’s the one I’m not,
I’ve got two faces, blurry’s the one I’m not,
I need your help to take him out,
I need your help to take him out.
The song “Goner” is all about Joseph’s desire to be authentic and real, to have his two-facedness removed and specifically for the “Blurryface” within him to be taken out. He wants to be known truly and fully. He wants those concerns about what others think, which compel him to project a false image of himself, to be finally erased. If it isn’t taken out, his true self will be so obscured by the “Blurryface” that he’s completely gone—a goner.
When I reflect on this song I think it is telling that Joseph grounds his desire to be authentic and real with others in his vulnerability before God and the true knowledge that God has of him. Here we have Joseph essentially asking God to remove those desires to be false towards others. And it is in that prayerful state that Joseph is completely vulnerable to God: “I’m a goner.”
I find this song to be a great reminder that my desire to be real with others has to be rooted in authenticity before God and a recognition that he is the only one that knows me truly and rightly and fully and without any confusion. It starts with being real with God because he already knows. And praise God that God doesn’t ever catfish us! Even though we do not know him fully, due to our limitations as finite creatures, we nevertheless can know him truly because he has chosen to reveal himself to us. And how unbelievably wild is it to think that the one in whom God has chosen to reveal himself—Jesus the Messiah—is simultaneously the one in whom we are found and known by God?
I think authenticity with others begins by being straightforward with God. I’ll have more to say about being real with others next time.
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