Jericho: The Things He Didn't Say

Nearly two and a half years ago, I wrote what's below. I wrote it in my email program, it has sat, staring at me from my "Draft" folder since then. At the time, my email program was the only text editor I had with a spell checker that wasn't Word. Now, I have about six text editors that can spell check, how the world has changed! However, the world is also very much the same - at probably no point in my time as a blogist has the below been more true. Read at your own risk, try not to take any of it personally ...


Do you know what I spend a lot of time doing on this site? I spend a lot of time out here editing myself. I spend a lot of time NOT saying things I would like to say. I spend a lot of time cutting myself off, correcting myself and rewriting things I said in the moment of passion.

I mean, gods forbid, what if I said something wrong and my employers read it? Or if my family read it? Or, what if my wife read it? What if I pissed them off or broke my NDA and lost my job or hurt someone or ended up divorced? If I misstep here, if I write the wrong series of words at just the right time in just the right way, I could really wipe myself out.

So, why do I do this crap? It's just a big waste of time. I'm not getting paid for this. It's not like I'm risking my life and getting an adrenaline rush here. This isn't REAL writing. I'm just bull-shitting. The fact that we use rough language out here will prevent me from ever getting paid for the work I do here. But, it's real, it's what I want to say. I want to expose myself to the world. I want to stand naked in front of the cyber storm and let it blow through me. I want people to know how I feel and what I think and how the weather is and what color my shirt is and that things are happening. But I don't talk about all of that, no, I edit it. I edit everything. I don't write for this site - I'm just the editor.

I've thought about going out to Blogger and writing a little secret journal just for the odd soul who tripped over it. There, I could say whatever I wanted, anonymously. But, that wouldn't be me, and I couldn't use real names. It would just be me blowing off steam. It would just be that little demon that lives under my brain. He would finally get to come out and say that I really want to ... and I really feel that ... and I really hate ... and I just want to kill ... and I just ....

But, that's not the real me. I'm the Editor. I've been editing all my life. Instead of risking it, I edited those thoughts and took a safer road. I edit what I say, what I do and how I feel.

Sometimes I wish I had nothing to lose. I could say and do as I please. But, who would care? The guy who has nothing to lose is without risk. I had nothing to lose moving out to Seattle, it was easy, I just left. I knew my family, the ones that mattered, would always be there. I knew Max would always be there. If I had been writing this at the time, you wouldn't be reading. I would have been boring. But, you read now hoping that I will lose something. We all watch the car race to see the winners and to watch the losers go up in flames. We may not be willing to admit it, but we all love a good, gorey, twisted metal and smoking bodies screw up, don't we? It sickens us and makes us feel good that we are alive. Maybe it just makes us feel.