Define: Blog

As I was laying out my feelings in yesterday's post, I was suddenly hit with how negative my words would sound to the former boss to which they applied if he happened to google my name and found that post.

And then I thought about the conversation my friend Ypsi and I had over coffee yesterday morning. I knew she had taken a hit from some readers several weeks ago and had determined to stop blogging. I had a similar situation in the early days of my blog, maybe mid-2007, when a reader who chose to remain anonymous said something very hurtful to me. I immediately password-protected my blog and only gave the password to known friends. (I hadn't been watching my blog feed so hadn't realized that Ypsi was writing again. I had a great time last night catching up with her recent words and thoughts.)

Yes, we bloggers are separated from our readers by lightyears of cyberspace and thousands of pixels. But we still have feelings. Why would you post a comment on my blog containing words that you wouldn't dream of saying to my face? I have feelings. I—especially I—have thin skin. Try as I might to toughen it up, it's still thin and I am hurt easily by unkind words.

So when someone, say a former boss, reads that I describe him as a MegaMicroManager, am I saying unkind words? In my mind, I'm not. (And, in the reader/commenter's mind, his or her words may not be unkind.) When I describe my boss, I'm sharing my thoughts, my opinions.

If he were to read those words and find them hurtful, I would feel hurt. He's really a kind, caring man. He has been generous with both Tyler and me by providing employment when we needed it, income when we needed it. That doesn't change my feeling that he's unnecessarily micromanagerial. That's my feeling, my opinion. He doesn't agree. We've discussed it in years passed.

It's his business. He's entitled to run it as he sees fit. If I want to run a business, I can go start my own. And if I find his micromanagerial style to be egregious and out of synch with my own style of working, I can leave and go find other employment. Which I did.

But I would never want my words to be hurtful to anyone.

Frequently I say things about people where I am fully aware of their web habits. I am fairly confident that neither of my brothers nor my sister-in-law will ever read a word I write on the internet. They have lives that don't revolve around cyberspace. But, again, the things I write about them are designed to help me probe a little more deeply into my soul and to give the readers—if they care to have it—a little more insight into who this writer is.

What's the point of today's circle of words? I guess it's "speak kindly, write kindly."

Oh, yeah. And if you want to say something cruel, go get your own damned blog. Keep your meanness out of my blog.

Sometimes it may not seem so, but ever since John's illness, my personal motto has been "Kindness spoken here."