Free speech.

A lovely thing. It’s probably the ultimate trump card for anybody living in a democratic country, or heck, any country these days and I have to agree, it’s definitely an attractive concept. I mean come on, the "say what you think - whenever wherever - don't give a shit about anybody else" idea brings personal freedom to a whole new level. Governments rise and fall because of it, leaders get ousted and replaced by others deemed more favourable. The whole concept just rings of the promises and hopes people place in the Big Idea (the Big Joke to some) called Democracy and the Free World.

What BUGS me most is when people bring the Free Speech card away from the political arena and into their normal everyday lives. I'm not saying that people shouldn't have the rights to it, trust me. Free speech is good, I agree.  However, like everything all sweet and good, it has its limits and this is something some people have trouble understanding. Especially so in a time where almost everybody maintains a personal blog (like yours truly, duh. Although it’s rarely updated :P). Most people treat their blogs as their own personal diary, detailing every minute detail of their lives, some mundane, some extraordinarily interesting (sometimes making your own dull life seem like stale mouldy cheese in comparison, and making you wonder if the person is making everything up, haha). But there’s one minor difference between a blog and a personal diary.

PEOPLE DO READ YOUR BLOGS.

However, that particular detail does not stop some people from detailing every piece of juicy gossip about others, exposing secrets meant to be kept and breaking promises made to others. Every sordid detail is exposed for all to read, with some points widely exaggerated to give it an extra zest for the reader. All this is resoundingly similar to the tabloids you can find at newsstands, and you might go “Hey, if the tabloids can get away with it, why can’t I?”

Well, there’s this little thing called ETHICS, ladies and gentlemen. It’s a simple concept, really, and it doesn’t really take a genius to figure it out. If you get a favour, you repay it; if you make a promise, you keep it. Simple. The paparazzi would be the last people in the world to be called ethical, and that’s why they’re in the bottom of the food chain in the world of journalism. Also, notice that in almost all cases where celebrities decide to take a lawsuit against a tabloid, the celebs win.  What I’m trying to point out here is that you CAN’T get away with it, unless you do not give a flying fuck about ETHICS. The people that you’ve mentioned on your blog are people as well with rights to their own privacy, so if you do not respect that, how would you expect others to do the same to you? Would you like to stumble upon a friend’s blog, only to find out that every personal bit about you is exposed on it?

There is a way which is employed by some bloggers to go around this issue. Anonymity.           

anon·y·mous

Pronunciation: &-'nä-n&-m&s
Function: adjective
Etymology: Late Latin anonymus, from Greek anOnymos, from a- + onyma name
1 : not named or identified <an anonymous author> <they wish to remain anonymous>
2 : of unknown authorship or origin <an anonymous tip>
3 : lacking individuality, distinction, or recognizability <the anonymous faces in the crowd> <the gray anonymous streets -- William Styron>

So the rule of this game here is to make sure that nobody recognizes you or the people you've mentioned in the blog. It’s a good game, I admit. As long as nobody gets hurt by what you say, then go ahead.

But if someone DOES stumble upon your blog and recognizes your true identity because of your stupidly obvious pseudonym and blatantly conspicuous URL address, then the game is over. The fault in this case falls to the writer/creator of the blog and he/she should be held responsible for it, without a doubt. This is especially so if the content of the blog describes personal details about a reader, meant only to be kept between the reader and the writer. In this case, the writer has not only committed gross stupidity beyond reason, but also a breach of trust (a matter that I’ve already referred to in my previous post, dated 6 July 2007). If someone trusts you with something, you keep that trust. That’s what you do with it, not bag it and feed it to the dogs when you get home.

Today’s exercises:

1.       Give some thought on how you might react if you told someone something personal which is meant to be kept between the both of you, and later find out that it is all detailed in that person’s blog for all to read.

2.       Consider your reaction if you are reassured by the same person that the blog is “anonymous”, even though you have managed to stumble upon the blog and immediately recognize the identity of the writer by the pseudonym and/or the URL address of the blog.

3.       Gauge your response if you are told by this same person that he/she should not be held responsible because the blog belongs to the him/her and there is such a thing as Free Speech. Do take into account that what was written in the above-mentioned blog is about YOU, every sordid detail, your experiences, even your little secrets.

4.       What would you do if the same person dismisses the whole issue as just another small obstacle that bloggers have to face and overcome, just to get their thoughts out to the public, which basically means “That’s the way how life is, just too bad for you”?

I'll end my extremely long rant here. By the way, I make no apology for it's length.

After all, it’s free speech, isn’t it?

I'm 23 years old this year and all this while, I, like any normal human being, have acquired a vast collection of loves and hates, bad experiences and good ones. And as the years pack on, you learn more, and as you learn more, you'll tend to add on to this collection. However, like any huge collection of items, some tend to be forgotten, buried deeper and deeper under the pile of fresh newly-added times, just waiting (probably hoping) to be found again.

So recently, one of these buried so-called "artifacts", if you will, were indeed dug up. Consequently, I have been forced to remind myself once again that it is definitely not very pleasant when the trust you have given someone is betrayed. Trust, for me and I guess for everyone, is important obviously for any relationship, platonic or romantic, and the degree of trust that is established varies depending on how much you, the truster, are actually willing to invest. For a truster, i.e me, to place a relatively high degree of trust on someone, the trustee obviously has managed to earn it pretty well while the truster (me once again) has certainly done alot of thinking before making a firm decision to place so much trust on the trustee. So now that I've learned that the trust has been breached, I do not know what to feel. Have I actually judged this person wrongly? Have I made too many hasty assumptions about this person? Should I feel stupid about it? Yes, in a way I feel stupid. But to blame myself for something like this is purely stupid itself, so no. I refuse to put the blame on my head.

Or should I?

Here enters buried "artifact" number 2 = not being able to simply place the blame on somebody else when I, possibly, just possibly, may have been responsible for this whole fiasco in the first place and should have seen it coming ages ago.

Well, to hell with all these. I do not need them and can do without them, and I definitely won't resort to blaming myself because that is pure stupidity, like I mentioned earlier. What really matters here is the breach of trust.

It's funny, how a simple discovery of a simple website, led by my own curiosity, would suddenly unearth all these.

Someone just related this story to me:

After having dinner in a certain eating establishment, a friend of mine decided to go to the bathroom. There he saw one of the kitchen staff exiting a bathroom cubicle and proceeding DIRECTLY to the bathroom exit, without stopping by the sink to wash his hands. When this friend of mine came out of the bathroom shortly after, he saw the same kitchen staff person already half-way through preparing someone's food (It's an open kitchen).

This is not the first time I've heard or even witnessed incidents like these. Not only in restaurants, but shopping malls, and cinemas, and heck even in university. In fact, MANY times in university. Seriously, people are capable enough to pursue a tertiary education and yet not able to wash their damn hands?

Malaysians, listen up. The sinks are ALWAYS, ALWAYS positioned close to the exit of the bathroom i.e it's not out of the freakin' way. And this concept is the same EVERYWHERE. It's part of the Dummies' Guide to Constructing Bathrooms. Is it so hard to stop for a few seconds to turn on the tap (yes, that shiny silver thing on top of the porcelein is called a TAP) and wash off (yes, WATER comes out of the TAP, and no, Jabatan Bekalan Air won't bill you for water usage) whatever nasties* you got on your hands? "Hey, most people wouldn't know if I washed or not anyway", some might say. Right. The kitchen help mentioned earlier definitely thought the same thing. So go ahead and sample his food.

But now I'm wondering, why am I getting so worked up over this hand-washing issue? Should I really be surprised that this is coming from a society who doesn't bother to lift up the toilet seat before pissing, and instead pisses ALL OVER THE TOILET SEAT?

*Note to idiots: The afore-mentioned "nasties" also refer to these tiny microscopic things called germs and bacteria. Microscopic as in you can't see it with your naked eye. So don't tell me that your hands look spotless, hence clean.

1. One paper down. 4 more to go.

2. Sue and Ben will be back soon .  Harin and We-Ki will not . Not sure about the rest yet.

2. Note to Pak Lah: Congrats on getting hitched. Now get back to fixing those damn ceilings.

3. Note to Samy: Fix those damn ceilings.

4. Note to pesky True Fitness saleswoman: STOP calling me. I already said I don't want to go for the 7-day trial/sales pitch/death trap. And the name is Christopher, pronounced Kriss-ter-fer. Not Chris Top Her. (Chris, Stop Her!)

5. Note to self: Study now.

Click.

Due to the increasing prevalence of fitness obsession among the current generation, especially after the screening of the film 300, Disney Pictures has re-released its blockbuster movie Pirates of the Caribbean as: