Think First

 I am sure that everyone's mother has said the same thing to them at some stage: "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all". We have all had something similar said to us during our growing up years. At the time it sounded like the typical complete nonsense stuff that parents say. Didn't really mean anything. A little later on we start to realise that ,behind the cheesy clique facade, the underlying message is that the things we do or say can have unforeseen and, indeed, unwanted, consequences. Therefore, think before you speak.

 

I have been connected to the internet, in some fashion, since about 1995 or 96. My employer had license to run 5 copies of Netscape web brower at any one time. Whether we were supposed to be using it is another matter, but then the IT department shouldn't have left them lying around on servers where any employee could pull them up and play with them. One of my work colleagues actually got away with that as an excuse when confronted by management about why and how he was accessing IT department software. A sign of the times when no one really knew how to handle public internet access. I have to confess that I used my time on the internet as a pure plaything in the beginning. Sitting at a keyboard there was little notion of consequences nor of accountability. I only physically knew 4 other people who were using the internet and they all sat just a few metres away from me. Anyone else was a bit like a cartoon character. The whole experience was somewhat surreal. Eventually my mother's words came back to me and I understood them in a bit more depth, with a slight modification to adapt to this new modern media. As it has been for the digital age, I believe that the following simple rule applies for the internet:

 

"Never say anything that you don't want the rest of the world to know".

 

The moment you place something into a digital format, you lose control over it. That is the reality of the internet world. It is both positive and negative. If you want to get the message out there, just drop into into the stream and let electronic nature take it's course. But if you want to maintain control over that message, then you had better be prepared to jump into the stream with your message and paddle for the rest of you life. Of course that is not a realistic alternative, which brings us right back to the original advice. There are really only two viable options as I see it. Firstly, never write anything. Ever. Alternatively, only write that which you know you can defend, and that you know can't come back and bite you. You have to know this, mind, it doesn't work to just hope. As I said, once it's out there, it's out there forever. There's no reeling it back in.

 

So why the sudden interest in iternet morality ? Well, about a week ago I happened across a series of conversations about me, between my adult son and my ex-wife. The wording of the messages were very clear that I was not supposed to read them. They weren't deliberately placed out for me to read, but they wasn't especially well hidden either. In any way, they didn't make for pleasant reading and left me feeling more than a little sad. I had always tried to keep myself neutral with my son, when it came to dealings with his mother. It took my stupid brain quite a long time to realise that I was the only one who was doing so. By that stage I was living in Sweden and it is virtually impossible to compete in a fair fight from that distance.

 

I was married to my ex-wife for about 12 years, which was 8 years longer than we should have been married. The first 4 years were ok, the second 4 years were spent trying to figure out how I could make the situation better and the final 4 years were spent trying to figure out how the hell I could get out of it. That last part is easier said than done when dealing with an unstable personality. Call it nature, call it nurture, call it bad blood. My ex-wife is simply not a very nice person. I'm trying not to portray this at the rantings of a bitter ex-husband. To be honest, she occupies very little of my emotional time. But, ex-wife or not, she is a mean and nasty person. It takes a little time to truely grasp that, she paints a charming picture of herself which she is able to maintain for brief periods of time. That probably why her move into the prostitution industry has ended up being the most "successful" of her working career. You can tell people anything they want to hear, so long as you only have to do it for half an hour at a time. It was that inability to grasp reality which resulted her changing employers more than 20 times during our 12 years together. Sorry guys, but if you really believe that "Phi" at Paradise Club in Wellington is the answer to all your prayers then you're in for a bit of a shock. There is a completely different picture waiting behind that facade. Mind you, if you were dumb enough to think otherwise in the beginning, you get no sympathy from me.

 

Is there anything to be gained by writing this on a personal blog site ? No, most likely not. Those who follow the blog are unlikely to be especially interested and the only real relevance to Sweden is the gratitide that Sweden lies 10,000+km away from that horror story. I know that what I have written will be here forever. It will lie in search engines, it will be copied, it will never disappear. And it is also the truth. That is the key to retaining power over your internet presence. Stick to the truth and no one can ever call you on it. Start lying and you'll be bailing out your internet kayak for the rest of your life. It's an easy decision.