BLOGGING

I have thought how different our talking is from our writing. When we are talking we seem to want to communicate to the individual or individuals we are talking to. We know we are going to get immediate feed back and there are no “do overs.” When we write we can edit, change, find the perfect word and then ask ourselves “is this what was intended.” If I receive feedback it will be at a later date. I have also noticed my writing tends to be more formal.

Today we have means for writing to give immediate feed back. When there is cyber news many times at the end is a place to give immediate feed back. I don’t know if the author reads the feed back but most times it gets a lively debate going. People say things anonymously that they might not say to the persons face. I think of it as “the writings of cowards.”

Recently I returned from a cruise. Since I find cruise reviews very helpful when planning a cruise I decided I would write a review of the ship and my experience. I thought, “What do I want to say that will help another plan their vacation?” I was quite pleased with my review and so I submitted it to CruiseCritic. Later I read the reviews of another who had gone on the same cruise. She had nothing but terrible things to say about the cruise. Since her review was submitted after mine she wanted everyone to know that I was a Pollyanna and my review was biased.

Am I a Pollyanna? I don’t think so. I think I’m just more realistic. I don’t expect everything to be perfect or about me. Not everyone will be what I want them to be nor will everything will go as expected. My room steward didn’t always get me ice. Towards the end of the first week all the banana’s looked like they were ready for banana bread. Interesting note: banana bread, banana pudding, and other banana deserts did appear on the menu the second week. I could go on but these things weren’t important. They didn’t keep my from having the time of my life.

The disadvantage to cyber blogging is once you write your thoughts they are there for the world to see forever. They don’t go away. If you hurt someone, ruin someone’s reputation or ruin a business because of what you have written I am sure there will be consequences not only to that person but to you as an individual. You can’t hurt another without hurting yourself. As my grandfather once told me, choose your words carefully because someday you may have to eat them.