You know, I was really excited this evening. This is because I had an interesting series of thoughts that held together like nothing I had seen before. They were wonderful thoughts holding together like a long and winding gathering of this and that. These thoughts were bizarre, unusual, frightening, holy, insightful, as black as night and as bright as the sun at the same time, provocative beyond belief, and pretty interesting too. So then what happened, and why didn't I end up putting it in my blog, this blog? Well, just when the momentum started building up, the flow of thoughts coming out at nearly the speed of light, I panicked. I got subtly nervous and started to shake slightly. It is called fear, the fear of recrimination or extreme punishment. Like in the Middle Ages. I was afraid that what I was about to write, no matter how wonderfully fantastic, would be taken out of context and used against me. Gotten me fired from my job. Some renowned psychiatrist would deem me schizophrenic, and I would be banished to a mental institute up there on the hill. That hill over there, I mean. It is getting worse and worse, and you read about it more often on the Internet. People are getting fired for what they are writing in their blogs. Yes, believe it or not it is true. You might want to check out the following entries at Fired at Mastication is Normal, Collecting Unemployment at Douce or Welcome to my weblog at Diveintomark, for more insights into the arisal of this undesirable trend. The ironic thing is that what they have written is not that bad at all, simply an expression, a random couple of thoughts, a release of insight, which someone somewhere just happened to take a little too personally. Someone who was bored with life and decided it would be a little more interesting if he displayed a mask like being offended. People like to write for themselves, or for the sake of creative writing, or for pure art. Like me. The farthest thing from our minds is trying to chop people down or make them look bad. If we wanted to do that effectively, if we were really persistent, we would not have chose the ineffective medium of blogging to accomplish this. There are easier means that attract a much wider audience more quickly. Being fired for a blog entry? What a joke, I cannot stop laughing. This is terrible, I cannot stop crying. I thought that I was paranoid, but now I am getting even more paranoid. More and more and more paranoid. What if someone way over there who had never seen me face-to-face or even can spell my name correctly reads this and gets upset. "Hey!" he or she will shout, "I do not know you, and yes I do live way over there." To make matters even worse, he will never had met me face-to-face either. "And to make matters even worse," we is saying right at this very moment, "I have never even met you face-to-face, Griffen!" Short pause and then, "How dare you write that way about me!" I think it is better if I stop writing this blog entry now before I get fired or something even worse happens to me, like getting my blog taken away from me. Adieu, parting is such sweet sorrow.

Blog-inspired termination is definitely a worrisome development, so much so that my parents are sometimes worried that I'll get in trouble for mine! However, I have no reference to my place of work on my site (other than as "work") so I can't see how anyone would be able to tell what or who I was talking about. I do worry about it occasionally, as I know at least one of my coworkers occasionally reads my site. I don't like the feeling that I have to censor myself, but in the case of him, I have to - just in case. And that's sad - blogging should be about getting your thoughts out without worries of incrimination. I've definitely lost some of my zeal for blogging lately because of this. Now *that's* sad.

Yes, very very sad. But is there anything we can do about it?

Here's a little something from an email I recently wrote to the author of Mastication is normal concerning this matter: "There's a bad dilemma going around lately. Either we are going to have to get used to it or do something else in order to change it. Freedom of speech, the ability to record your thoughts on paper, being creative and resourceful, is a driving force behind the pursuit of freedom. That is why there is such potential on the internet with the appearance of web logs like yours and mine. Sharing ideas with others in order to make the world a better place to live. But now our words of wisdom are being extracted, stretched way out of context, and used against us. Surely this was never meant to be. But it is happening anyway. Why are there always bad apples out there who ruin the show? Professionals who write books or articles for a living usually do not get fired because of their ideas, no matter how bizarre. Except those being repressed by dictators or police states. Wait a minute, this is the United States. The question is: are we going to do something about it? Eventually if enough of us honest common-sense folks combine our efforts, I feel we can do something about it. There should be a law against firing people because of their ideas, and I guess we are somehow going to have to fight for these rights. Shall we join forces and do something about it? Could be a fun adventure. Might get fired ten times over, but it will be worth it. Start a movement, okay..."

I too am careful about what I write/blog while here at work. No company names (unless I slip up). After all they pay me for work - if I complete the work and do this in between, I feel OK...

Yes Pat, that is probably the best coarse of action to take for now.