Campfyre Stories

Nope, it’s not a typo, it’s a phrase/word I’m coining.

It all comes down to the obligations you wind up feeling in relation to your blog.  I think that, for the most part, people start off writing for themselves, but at some point (sometimes at several points) we become all wrapped up in our "audience" and what they must think of us.

• I need to blog every day or people will stop reading.
• All my posts have to be public so anyone can read what I have to say.
• I have to reply to each and every comment so my readers know I care about them.
• I must apologize for a lack of time/things to say/[insert reason for not blogging] and explain myself.
• I must announce "breaks" from blogging so my readers don’t feel abandoned.

You know what?  (And understand that I say this as much to myself as anyone else).  GET OVER IT ALREADY.  The world does not revolve around us or around our blogs.  Life goes on, whether you go on vacation or become really busy or just need a break from the internet.  Maybe you lose readers, but let’s me honest here, few of your readers are or will become your friends.  Those who are/do will be there when you come back.  It’s true.

I’m reminding myself.

 But here’s the thing…  how much obligation do we really have in this?  I mean actual responsibility or social internet consciousness.

This whole thing was sparked from several events.  One is my father’s cancer.  I started protecting certain posts, but I also make a real effort to make unprotected posts for those who didn’t want to ask for the password.  Believe me, it was an effort.  Tying in with that is that I have been less interested/motivated/able to blog since my father passed, but have avoided posting about why I’m not posting.  I’ve also seen several blogs recently that are going on hiatus or quitting the blogosphere altogether.  There is a significant amount of justification that goes along with that.

And then I got a comment notification this morning from an entry I wrote over 1.5 years ago.  Go on and read it…  I’ll wait for you to come back.

Welcome to the 21st century, the new millennium, the internet age.  She sounds pretty desperate, no?  But when you’ve hung around as many message boards as I have, you get to know the scammers who sound pretty similar to this girl.

There’s part of me that feels like I’m supposed to do or say something to her, but as cold as I often come off, any email I sent would read:

Listen, the first and foremost thing is that drugs are not the answer.  I can tell you that the first thing you should try to do to fix your sleep patterns is to stop with the "420".  It *does* interfere with your sleep and often causes insomnia.  You say you’ve tried pills, but I don’t get the impression that you’ve seen a doctor about this problem - self-medicating is an extremely dangerous thing to do.

Yes, what you have is insomnia and there are many different types.  You probably don’t need a hospital, you need to start reading up on relaxation techniques and look into a sleep clinic.  However, you shouldn’t be looking for answers on personal blogs.  You need professional help and the first place to start is stopping the use of all chemical substances (legal or otherwise).

Which is callous, or at least would be read as such by someone making so desperate a plea for help.  However, my skeptical nature cannot allow for this to be genuine.  Even if it is, though, she sounds exceedingly paranoid and somewhat delusional.

I can assure you that I’m not going to give medical advice to anyone, let alone random person on the internet, but I suppose the question remains, is there a responsibilities to the pleas of a desperate person on the internet?  Her comment could easily go unnoticed on blogs without notification enabled.

What if it had been something more desperate?  Is there a social responsibility if your blog receives a suicide threat?  Or a threat of public violence/domestic terrorism?  Where is that line drawn and what role do we, as bloggers, as diarists play in the overall situation?

When does "Oblogation" cease being a (mostly) harmless personal neurosis and turn into an actual obligation that needs to be addressed, and how can you ever tell the difference and know the correct action to take.

And, if you’re wondering, in the meantime, I’m not planning to reply.  I’m too convinced it’s a game or a troll, but if she’s serious, then maybe she’ll come back and read what I said in this post, but that’s all I intend to do this time around…  it’s not like I’m at all qualified to offer any kind of help in this situation.