Privacy

A friend of mine recently posted in her Facebook blog "I have no secrets, really. No secrets because nothing embarrasses me. Nothing embarrasses me because…I don’t know. Because my life is currently a result of adult choices?" I thought about this for a while, because as a part of me desires to have a "online diary" a much more conservative part of me wants to reserve a piece of a private life. Everything I am reading these days points to the fact that at some point everything we say do and possibly even think will be digitized, blogcasted and browseable. Hopefully all intellectual rights laws will be deleted, because I am afraid of my memories being charged for the copyright infringements.

Ok, so my rant just went in an odd direction right there. But I don't like the idea of all of my experiences being data ready for download, all of my stories being available without my consent. It's bad enough that every picture taken of me can be posted and anyone with the right friend access (which doesn't mean friends with me) can see pictures of me at my best and at my worst best. Is everyone else comfortable with this? One of my cousins used to say that she didn't want her picture taken because she believed it stole her soul. How far from the truth is this?

You say, "So DJ, why do you have a blog then?" I've been thinking about that for a while. Part of the answer is that I honestly believe that sharing some of your thoughts leads to the benefit of humanity. In fact, people's thoughts interact in such a strange way there is no way to predict who will be affected and how. That is an exciting thing. Another part of the answer is that I believe that we should share our opinions on what is happening in our world. If people see other people thinking the same way about something they may gain the courage to voice opinions previously held captive by fear.

But at the same time will I ever post my private things? Well, how private is this post right now? Honestly, you can probably figure out a few things about me from this post, but I don't know exactly what. I like my secrets, and I want to keep them that way.

Everything that gets put forth into the world is a calculated effort whether you know it or not.

This just in: "ending an unpopular war is the political kiss of death"

Listening to: Arctic Monkeys "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not"

Reading: Wilde, "Soul of Man Under Socialism" - Marx, "Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof"