In The Online World, Achieving Long-Term Consistency Of One's "Personal Persona" Is Often Quite A Challenge

While eating lunch in a coffee shop today, I overheard an interesting conversation, conducted by two gentlemen who I would guess were both in their mid-twenties. It appears that one of them maintains a blog and also comments frequently on other blog-sites. The other gentleman took this individual to task for "...writing one thing on your blog and another thing on other blog-sites...."

I found this fascinating for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it got me thinking about the possible disparity between the persona I project on my own blog-site and the persona I project when I comment on other blog-sites. (I guess this convesation got me thinking that being two or more different "internet personas" at once would be a relatively easy and tempting thing to do....)

I wish I could have listened to the rest of their conversation (because where does such a conversation go from there, any way?), but it was soon the case that I had to leave. Still, I thought I'd provide my readership with a taste of the type(s) of comments I write on the two sites I most frequently visit, which are those written by my friends Anoka Flash (http://www.centrisity.blogspot.com/) and Penigma (http://www.penigma.blogspot.com/). To be sure, I don't comment on these sites every day, but I did happen to post a comment on both of them today.

At present, I'm in the odd position of evaluating what I wrote on these sites and measuring it against what I've written on my site...and coming to the conclusion that my persona doesn't seem to have shifted much, at least as far as today's comments are concerned. This is to say that I find myself in the odd and uncomfortable position of self-congratulation, at least on that score. Yet the point of this is most likely not to show consistency over the course of a single day, but rather over a lengthy period of time. So this is what I resolve to do: I will try to maintain the same personality and basic set of viewpoints from here onward (as I hope I have done at least fairly consistently up to this point), whether writing on my own blog-site or elsewhere. And, at the risk of sounding a bit omnipotent (which I am certainly not) and "teacherly" (a personal aspect which I probably display too often), I hope to encourage others to do likewise.

At any rate, the following are the comments I posted earlier today on my friends' blog-sites, starting with my comment on Penigma's site and followed by my comment on Anoka Flash's site. I suppose you can use these comments any way you wish to use them; I will try to use them as evidence that I am at present at least somewhat consistent insofar as my on-line personality is concerned. (As always, my readership may or may not agree with me.)

(Note: I have edited both comments, but only very slightly, so that one or two awkward turns of phrase have been made more easily readable.)

1.) Posted on "Penigma":

Hasslington said...

I don't mind Senator Obama's tax cut scenario because, in the short run, at least his proposed cuts would help folks who need it to offset higher energy and food costs. Folks who can handle a slight rise in their taxes (i.e. those who make $250,000+ per year) will help to create room for those tax cuts without the budget deficit exploding yet further due to this plan.

But your basic premise [that tax cuts are not the solution to the present economic troubles] is pretty spot-on, Penigma. For one, given the credit crisis, the deficit is going to rise one way or the other for a while, as federal and state tax revenues recede. Also, we [in the U.S.] have yet to work at a national level to solve the energy and health care crises, which will only get worse before they get better, and which will only put us into a more intense form of economic dire straits as they continue to become more and more untenable.

I am not suggesting that some sort of overarching, Soviet-style "Five Year Plan" is in order. That would prove disasterous. But I am suggesting that we start taking the long-view at the local, state, and national levels, and stop stumbling about like babes in the woods. Let's come up with a few strategies and then work to make them workable, which means they need to be flexible and lean enough to work but not too insubstantial, and they need to utilize the best components of both government leverage and the free market.

2.) Posted on "Centrisity":

Posted by: Hasslington

I'll be honest: I often feel frustrated, because I came back to the U.S. about a year ago, as the economy started to become rickety (though I was surprised that no one seemed to notice until after the winter began).

I'm a teacher, and because of my experience and various academic degrees, I've spent the summer interviewing and being passed over for full-time teaching jobs in favor of folks fresh-out of college with little experience (i.e., they are cheaper to hire). So, I've been working part-time jobs.

We all need to take a deep breath and try to find in this type of situation whatever bright side we can. I, for one, am thankful for the work I have been able to find, and this experience has also reminded me the value of what I needed to practice when I lived in the U.K. (where I had a solid, full-time job but the cost of living is quite high compared with Minnesota): frugality.

I am not a fan of recessions, but I am also not a fan of dumb, zombie-like ueber-consumerism, which I consider a sort of insidious, mass mental illness. The former is depressing, and the latter inevitably leads to boom-and-bust scenarios.

At present, the whole Western world is receiving a wake-up call, and hopefully two things will happen: 1.) we will get a sense of perspective, which is often clouded by our mass affluence; and 2.) we will eventually pull out of these difficult economic times and be smarter about avoiding boom-and-bust silliness in the future, prefering slower yet steadier means of economic growth as the way toward worldwide stability.