Why noding about your personal life can be a bad idea

While I doubt any of you reading will understand the unique culture and style of the Everything community (not as a down on you, but just because it is strange to the outsider), these sentiments are slight echoes of things I’ve had to deal with, and very enlightening:

Why noding about your personal life can be a bad idea (idea) by Morgon77
Fri Sep 8 2000 at 17:46:58 UTC

Honesty regarding one’s self can be very good, but only if you can detach yourself from it.

Having been in the internet atmosphere for several years now, and having experienced the sudden silence that seems to fall in bbs rooms whenever anything personal or idealogically beautiful goes from my brain to the screen, I have to say that true, open honesty about anything on the net is an open invitation to have your heart torn out.

Because the internet is merely words on a screen, many people are incapable of regarding what they see in the same context as, say, people’s feelings. You become a part of the entertainment, rather than a living soul.

Is this expression worth the risk? Personally, I think so, and have never held back from self expression. But I’ve also learned to stop caring or attatching too much importance to what other people think. That’s far too dangerous anywhere in life, but especially on the ‘net.

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=739462