Via Daily Prompt: Unmoored (Orig published May 2017 on TheScoop2017.wordpress.com)
Being shy and publishing one’s work on the internet seems to be an oxymoron. Has shyness kept you moored, tethered tightly to privacy which is anchored deep in the depths of your character. How does a person become unmoored and ready to move from private to public with their thoughts, their writings? Once out there, it seems irretrievable. What if I make a mistake? What if my opinion gets a lot of kickback? What if I’m wrong or have the wrong attitude? What if . . . .
In “Reconceptualizing Collective Action in the Contemporary Media Environment,” Bruce Bimber, et al. writes that collective action has changed in this digital age from two or more people creating a public good like a park or bridges or library, to transferring what was once a private interest or action to a public interest or action. When two or more people cross an interest from private to public concerning a public good, it becomes a collective action.
What does this have to do with being shy and not wanting to publish things on the internet? Someone said the internet is like a big copy machine and one should not publish anything out there on the world wide web if they don’t want to have it copied. But isn’t that the point? If a person puts something on the internet, it is with the hopes that it gets attention, gets read, reviewed, decided upon, and copied for even more people to read. It becomes like a public good if the information is of help or entertainment to the masses.
So moving from private thoughts and interests to putting these ideas on the internet is possibly forming a public good and one I should embrace. After all, it isn’t about my writing as much as it is about helping others understand complex issues of our day. So why am I scared to do this?
I feel like I’m standing at the top of the tall diving board. My toes have already dipped into the water and felt its coolness. Now these same toes are curved over the edge of the long piece of flexible material dangling loosely over the abyss of water way below. Should I jump or should I stay attached to this pseudo ground saving me from the shock of coldness? So here I stand, having already climbed away from the safety of my own thoughts, and privacy of the one, and walked out onto the plank of the web, now creating a gulf between privacy and the unknown shock of public domain. Will I pull up the anchor of my privacy and be unmoored, publishing my posts and float in the sea of public opinion? Or will I turn around, walk back to the steps, and climb down backwards deeper into privacy, reclaiming safety in the one and only I once again?
There are other divers on other diving boards all around me. They don’t seem to think twice about jumping into the water. Soon, their heads pop up, they holler to a friend, wave and laugh before swimming to the edge to climb out and get in line to do it all over again.