A real human being in a hundred essays?

When I started writing online some time ago, I drew up a disclaimer. After a while, I realised that if people were going to plagiarise, or be insensitive or rude, or make assumptions about who you are, a disclaimer sure isn't going to stop them from doing all of those things. Heck -- they'll even cut and paste your disclaimer and claim it for their own! ;)

I guess even though it's probably less confrontational writing behind a monitor, it isn't all that different from real life -- you can hope for common decency and discernment, but you cannot expect it from others.

Anyway, the short story is that I took it down, and replaced it with some snippets that I thought put it all quite nicely. (Even then, people will still cut and paste what you wrote about what other people wrote, but without the courtesy of linking back to the original authors.)

I was doing some spring-cleaning online too; and in re-reading one of them, I realised all over again why I'd put it up in the first place:

"This is ME writing. I’m the guy who writes with the voice of Real Live Preacher. The Preacher is a character. I didn’t set out to create a character. I didn’t set out to do anything but write honestly. But the minute I started writing, Real Live Preacher popped out of me. I was as surprised as anyone.

"I have been truthful all along the way. The truth is more interesting, and if you tell the truth you never have to cover your tracks...

"I think the people who know me see me in Real Live Preacher and see Real Live Preacher in me. But we are not one and the same. There’s no surprise in this. I could never capture the complexity that is a real human being in a hundred essays. I choose to write about some parts of my life and choose to keep other parts to myself. Real Live Preacher is a reflection of me, a part of me."

-- "The Anonymity Conversations (One)" by Gordon Atkinson, a.k.a Real Live Preacher (Italics mine)

Of course, different people write for different reasons, and there is a chance that some of you will see no relevance or significance in this. Just indulge me, smile, and move along; the stories and chuckles will resume sometime.