Comments?

Back in the day, the winter I first got my computer -- not my first computer, that was a commodore 64 -- I had fun discovering the Internet. An encyclopedic compendium of information, with your own curiosity serving as guide. What could be better? I also found some fun chatrooms to play in. Bizarre personalities probably not encountered in real life, who seemed to be there 24/7. You typed, someone typed back. Quite interactive.

When I read comments now in people's blogs, or personal information shared on-line, today I am more wary. It takes little to create a persona, like putting on a mask at Halloween. The first character I encountered in one particular chatroom *streaked the room*, albeit more descriptively than what I've typed between asterisks here, denoting not talk but action. It was funny, and for a while, I was hooked, visiting that particular chatroom often.

A passel of online characters kept me entertained a few hours here and there, with my r/l friend in the next room being entertained by evening t.v. Sure you could see my little life that particular winter as loser-dom, but I figured the "tv" characters in this new medium were a little more uncensored, unfiltered and quite frankly, more funny than anything on primetime. And they dressed way better too. :) I'm not proud, but at the time, I was working, taking care of my business, and planning for the future. When the winter hibernation was over and the weather changed, I played there a lot less and was outside a lot more. The cast of characters must have trickled away, on to new places.

Nowadays, when you see how creeps like that guy in the Pacific NW who slaughtered a family, use the Internet for contacts, well my early experiences make me realize there's a lot of potential danger in those bizarre characters. I became convinced that the places I went online were populated by characters created by one or two sitting in front of a keyboard directing the *actions* and affectations of multiple personas. I'm not poking fun per se -- no doubt some of these creators are computer savvy and highly intelligent, capable perhaps with Internet help of discussing scores of topics. They say you can hide your tracks too, where you're coming in from, though I've personally never needed to investigate this further.

My screen name in one room started with a "D", a made-up name I settled on that sounded cool. Later, elsewhere, I posted rude comments under that same screen name, apologized, and moved on. Still, you wonder who's really out there. It sure would be easy, if you had the time and faster technology, to populate a place online and manipulate other "real" players through the devious use of your skills. Not that there's anything wrong with that necessarily. It's not honorable, for sure, but short of crossing any lines, let the reader beware seems to be attitude.

Sometimes I think it's lousy that our best instincts are stifled because we have to act defensively. Sometimes I think that's the price you pay initiating a new technology and gaining the benefits that come with shared info instantly at our fingertips. Mostly though, I try to learn and adjust according to that. It's hard to know what comes next in unstable times, but by positioning oneself with an eye towards tomorrow, and taking care making personal choices, hopefully it all works out.

In the meantime, to lift a quote from the early Hill Street Blues series... "hey, let's be careful out there."