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Paul Makepeace > Inchoate > 2004 > 11 > Big Man Behind A Keyboard news - contact - search |
Recently brother Nik received an astonishing email from the new husband of an ex of his. There's nothing I can really add on top of his eloquent description, you have just got to read it yourself: Hello, Aaron Benedek. Be sure to check out Nik's reply and the alternative that was never sent...
I'm not sure Nik's site's ranking with Google but if I published something on this blog it'd be indexed by Google in less than 24 hours. In that time this guy's name in Google will be #1 for his, IMO, ill-considered piece of piffle. Makes ya think, huh?
While I am strongly opposed to revealing private correspondence and have never forwarded private email, seeing this kind of nonsense really makes me think publishing truly aberrant and abhorrent material can act as a regulator over time. Reputation is a powerful persuader.
(These days, after ongoing and repeated casual violation of what I consider private correspondence (forwarding my emails, including others in a reply with quoted text, Bcc, etc) by both business colleagues and friends I now pretty much assume everything I write is public. Fortunately this hasn't had much impact as there's not much to hide in my life but as a shift in perception it's potentially dramatic in its scope.)
"Nothing encourages good behavior like public scrutiny" -- Neale Walsch aka "God"
Your point about assuming publicity is interesting. When I started blogging with Travelog, I pretty much decided I would actually push the details out there, warts and all, and to hell with the comeback.
I'd say for me, the shift wasn't in what I revealed, but what I remained aware I was hiding. It was a good opportunity to size up what I felt important to hide, and think about why I felt it important. The result was that I only hid things when I wanted to protect the kids I was teaching from learning too much about the real me, mainly related to my drink and drug intake.
Having a junior high school student ask what fake drugs are was certainly a sobering moment.
Posted by: Nik at November 3, 2004 18:32