Why have a web site at all?

Or at least, why put such per­son­al infor­ma­tion out there on the net for the world to see? I had pre­vi­ous­ly said some­thing on my main page about the net being the great­est van­i­ty press ever invent­ed, and I still think of it that way. It has giv­en an unprece­dent­ed num­ber of peo­ple not just the abil­i­ty to pub­lish their mate­r­i­al, but to reach vast audi­ences with it. I orig­i­nal­ly start­ed cre­at­ing a home page because I need­ed to learn HTML to do my job, but I quick­ly found that hav­ing a forum in which to present my thoughts as I please, with­out edit­ing by or for any­one else, was an addic­tive experience! 

And, really—why would­n’t I have a web page? Why would­n’t I be hap­py to be noticed?

There are plen­ty of excel­lent sites that are just links or search engines, like Yahoo. There isn’t a need for addi­tion­al pages that are only col­lec­tions of links, and there­fore I’ve avoid­ed that on my site. Why have a site with no orig­i­nal content? 

If you’re going to cre­ate con­tent, you have to speak on some sub­ject. Some­thing you do know about. Some­thing you have rea­son to believe some­body else wants or needs to read. I have writ­ten about what I know, from com­put­ers or music to my fam­i­ly and life. 

I am a very open and hon­est per­son. I do not hide any­thing about who I am. I am care­ful to con­ceal some infor­ma­tion for safe­ty’s sake, such as pre­cise­ly where we live. Oth­er­wise, I don’t care who knows such things about me. My activ­i­ty on the net, both pro­fes­sion­al and per­son­al, has always been con­duct­ed under my own name and email address with no attempt to con­ceal my iden­ti­ty. I do not say any­thing online that I would­n’t acknowl­edge pub­licly, face to face. I’m hap­py with who I am and what I’ve done in my life, and the vast major­i­ty of cor­re­spon­dence I receive from vis­i­tors to this site indi­cates that read­ing about my expe­ri­ences has helped some of them in their own lives. That is, in and of itself, a pos­i­tive result. 

It is also ther­a­peu­tic to write about some issues, such as being a sur­vivor of child­hood sex­u­al abuse. Some issues, such as size accep­tance, are impor­tant to me per­son­al­ly, and I want to pro­voke thought regard­ing them. I am absolute­ly pas­sion­ate about the respon­si­bil­i­ties we as adults bear with regards to chil­dren, so I wrote the par­ent­ing page. Shar­ing infor­ma­tion about, for instance, the books and music I enjoy may allow some­one else to receive plea­sure from the same sources. 

In short, this site exists because it helps me and oth­ers. If any­one does­n’t like what I pub­lish here, they don’t have to read it. If you do choose to read it I hope you enjoy the expe­ri­ence. If you feel a need to attack me based on what I say here or to twist this infor­ma­tion out of con­text, I pray that some­day you will find heal­ing so you can find bet­ter pur­suits to fill your days.