Of course, Droogie suffered learning this and after some thought, I have come to realize this has seriously impacted me personally.
I've written many things online, all of which I thought I could live with. They are good positions, true as I can manage and honest in that I was trying to have real conversations with people, not to change them so much as it is to improve ME!
When we write online, we all put ourselves online so we can look in the mirror of our peers and live with what we see. All of those mirrors are cracked and flawed, just as we all are, but that does not matter.
What does matter is that we can see one another and build on what we see so that we may be stronger, more potent and just better people.
This can't happen if the conversations can't be REAL. REAL conversations involve knowing the others in some fashion and with that comes the danger of the AP action.
That's the chilling and it's like turning out the lights so we can't see and grow, leaving us in the dark, fumbling scared and impotent.
I can't take back what I've written and I don't want to. I've got friends from that, who I value very highly. I've learned things I don't think I would have learned otherwise. I've had fun, laughed, cried, and felt a little less alone when I needed it most.
Here, on Kos, I'm not a huge participant. This community is vibrant and so very smart and willing to share. I prefer smaller venues and frankly, many of you just get there first, so I lurk and enjoy and grow.
I will miss Droogie. I'm sure I'll see the new incarnation, grin and move forward, like I have with others forced to endure this online identity churn.
It's gonna be hard to not speak my mind in a way that connects the two and that's the harm! It's a split that must be managed and that sucks.
Sometimes the world sucks a little. To me, this is one of those times. We want to be strong, we want to not take shit, do the right things, but at the end of the day, we need our families too.
What was done was low. The lowest actually, and everybody, who is anybody that matters KNOWS IT.
These clowns rule by fear. They do ANYTHING to cultivate it, distort it, leverage it and profit from it. I hate to fear --I hate being forced to fear, or worse, endure knowing somebody is being forced to act out of FEAR, not TRUTH or MERIT.
God help us, if we can't get this right and start changing things up for the better. I wouldn't know how to begin to explain why we didn't get it done to my kids.
Consider these:
http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/...
http://w2.eff.org/...
http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/...
Shouldn't have to start this conversation here, but I think it's a must. Perhaps the best thing is to just be smart and not quite so trusting. Google our real names, Google our user names and just see what is out there and consider how to slowly lower the profile.
And I know, (I FREAKING KNOW!) that's the fear response. Post on that too, I need to hear the other side.
No mojo for me please. Just take this diary discussion and post up the stuff you know, the stuff that might help, because this sucks and because it's the right thing to do.
Any of us might need it.