Honestly

Those who have known me over the years will tell you that I am an honest person. Sometimes too honest but that’s my nature. So if I tell you something, then take it at face value because I am not one to jerk someone around. If I like your art, I’ll tell you. If I think you have a good idea, I give you credit for it. If I say I know someone, then I do know them to some degree. If I say friend about someone then I count them as such.

I know on the Internet one should be cautious to the nth degree. No one is, apparently, who they say they are. There are a lot of people who create entire other lives that they maintain on the Internet (and I’m not just talking about Second Life or World of Warcraft). Now I have met plenty people who I first met online and they are, for the most part, who they say they are in person. There are some exceptions.

But there are a set of people who hide on the Internet because they don’t want to (or can’t) deal with real life that is around them. And on the Internet, as Garrison Keillor says, "all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average." So they create these elaborate facades that they hide behind when they are called on their shenanigans. Especially when they are called to account for their actions in the Internet. And then there are those who say that they don’t want to tell who they really are because it would be a “bad” thing since they are super secret spies or, and probably the real reason, they are afraid of blowback in real life based on their behavior on the Internet. The more that they create the fiction, the more they do to make sure that it can’t be revealed as such. To the point that when the curtain is pulled back and the Wizard is proven a charlatan, parts of the Internet go down in flames.

I was recently questioned as to my identity or was I really who I was. I was pretty able to prove it. There are pictures of me out there that can be compared to photos in my own albums. I tend to have close to the same name for most of my handles online. I am who I say I am. I am honest about who I know and what I have done in my life. If I am being cagey about something, it usually has to do with the business and what I have been told in confidence and what is publically known or been announced. I tend to err on the side of caution because I don’t want to screw up my career with something I say here that haunts me years down the road.

Now off to finish up the next step for the Dragon Eggs.

I am grateful for all the people I have met in real life and continued that connection on the Internet.