A moral dilemma?

Hardly.

But I just read an email where my sister asked my daughter "Doesn't your dad have a blog too?"

I do/did have a blog at jerry.boshear.org. I haven't updated it in ages and last I checked it was down for some reason (tech support is looking into it, has been for a while).

But the dilemma is this: Since I started this blog a few weeks ago, I haven't told anyone about it. I haven't made it a secret by any means but I also haven't gone out of my way to tell anyone about it. I was hoping to just keep making entries until one of my family found it on their own.

But now someone has asked so at this point, if I don't tell them about it I will feel like I am keeping a secret from my family (I understand the irony, it's world wide web after all).

I am writing this entry to help me figure out what to do.

1. I could ignore the email since it wasn't really written to me, I was just cc'd on it.

2. I could reply to the email and say something obscure like "Google Boshear". Then I "technically" haven't kept it a secret.

3. I could reply to the family and include a link to this blog.

4. I could send a private email to my sister telling her about it and explaining that I'm only telling her because she is my favorite.

When faced with major decisions such as this, the outcome of which could possibly change civilation as we know it, I always apply the WWJD rule (What Would Jerry Do?)

I think number three. Even if they read it I'll probably stop writing before long and they will likely forget to check it after a few weeks (just like what happened with jerry.boshear.org)

As I said I was hoping one of my family members would find this blog on their own. I've tried to help them. I write enties while having coffee with my wife and I often read them to her. She probably thinks I'm posting in my other blog, but she hasn't asked. I post comments to my daughter's blog and we once discussed how you can click on the poster's name to see their blog... I thought she would find this place for sure after that conversation...

Hey wait! Maybe they have ALL found it and they are just being like me?!?!

What Assholes!

What if you wrote a blog...

and no one read it?

I think I'd be okay with that. While part of me wants the world to know my innermost thoughts, another part of me doesn't want to deal with being judged by strangers.

So far (since I haven't told anyone about this blog) it appears that no one is reading my babble so that's good. More than good in fact, because look at the freedom this gives me. I am free to assume that EVERYONE has read this and found it so profound that it has left them all speechless.

The reality is probably that a few Internet robots have read this and found it so boring they didn't even bother indexing it.

I believe my writings are only interesting to my family members, and most of them are probably just being nice.

At any rate if I ever think of anything else to say, I'll say it here first.

Oh! Maybe that's it

I'm not much of a blogger really. I enjoy reading the occasional blog but I struggle to write my own. This morning, like every morning when I decide to steal the time to write something, my mind went totally blank. Why does this happen every damn time?

I thought back about the previous entries I had made here and at my other blog and it dawned on me.

I'm doing it backwards.

I'm not supposed to wake up and think about what to write. I'm supposed to wake up and write about what I'm thinking. Or better what I have been thinking about lately. I figure if there is something in mind that I have thought about more than once it just might be worth writing about. Not so much because I think other people will want to read it but because I need to think it out, or maybe just get it out.

Lot's of bloggers are very good writer's. Many are witty and always seem to have something interesting to say. That ain't me, but then I don't plan to tell anyone about this blog anyway. I'm just writing it because... well, I'm not sure why I'm writing.

However, I know what I created this blog. My daughter created a blog here on blogspot and I left a few anonomous comments to her postings. She told me to get an account so her friends that read my comments wouldn't think I was some strange mean person, they would know I was her strange mean dad.

I signed up and apparently you can't have a login on blogspot without creating a blog. So here I am. I didn't plan to write anything here as you can tell by my first posting but what the heck. It's here, I'm here, let's just do what comes natural.

So, back to what I have been thinking about lately. I have been thinking about an article I read a few days ago entitled You are what you post".

You can go read it. I'll just sit here and continue thinking about it. I probably shouldn't say anymore anyway.

cya

You can't let it change who you are.

Someone I respect recently told me this. He was referring to an incident where someone he trusted violated that trust and as a result ended their relationship.

This led us to discuss things that people do that catch us off guard and disappoint us in some way.

As I go through life I find that for me at least it is not possible to prevent the things that happen to me from changing who I am. Or is it something else?

Over the years "who I am" has definitely changed. I am left to wonder if this change is a result of my life experiences or if it is just a natural part of human growth.

I remember when I was young and extremely liberal. It didn't occur to be to be otherwise. I was "naturally" an unassuming, open minded person who gave everyone the benefit of the doubt. I would observe events and hear comments from others (usually older) that caused me to laugh to myself and wonder "Why would he even think that, much less say it?".

At that time, when someone did something unconventional I would often quote Jimi Hendrix in their defense "I'm the one who's got to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to"

What changed?

On an intellectual level I still believe that. But I find these days that I don't FEEL it. Why? The phrase comes to mind "You're getting cynical in your old age".

Well first, I'm not in my old age so don't even go there, but second, is getting cynical something that naturally happens to us? And if so, how do we stop it?

When I was young my natural reaction to things people did was to accept them without question.

At some point I noticed I was still accepting things but in my mind I was questioning them.

Later, I noticed that I was verbally questioning things people did and mentally passing judgment on them.

Now I have reached a point where I verbally express my judgments about others to those I love and trust.

What's next? Will I become "that guy"? You know, that guy that I used to make fun of when he would say things that demonstrated how narrow minded he was?

I miss my father... but not so much that I want to become him.