Show and Tell

A while back my friend Holly (the ever witty and insightful Spleeness) posed the question: How much do you reveal about yourself on your blog?

I couldn't sit down and write a good answer then, but I've carved out a little time to explore the issue a bit.

If you this is your first time here, or if you really don't know me from any other person who cranks out dozens upon dozens of words and pushes them into the great wide open Web, I'll direct your attention to two places.

The first is the archive on this site--just page back through things or do searches. You'll find a ton of stuff on my politics, pass times, photography, and family.

The second is the sidebar. Most of what's there is from other blogs I write. Each deals with a specific set of interests I have. How to Crush Without Being Crushed is probably the most often deeply personal. It deals with relationships. Mostly mine. Mostly from the past. And mostly horribly tragic. OK, maybe not "tragic", but definitely not the most successful things in the world. In retrospect, kind of funny. At the time they were playing out, not so much.

Bottom line is, I'm pretty darn open about things here on the Web. Mostly because I don't have much at all to hide. Also because I'm pretty open in the "real" world, too. I like parity. No sense to me in being more closed off in one space while being open in another.

Sure, there are things I don't talk about a lot. Usually out of respect for other people involved. Sometimes to avoid kicking up more dust than I care to deal with. But never with an intent to decieve. Just like I never type (or speak) with an intent to harm.

I've been managing my online identity since 1994 when I set up my first website on my college's computer system. I purposely make myself easy to find (seriously, I'm KierDuros just about everywhere) and make sure that if there's a story in volving me, I'm either the first one to tell it or one of the first to comment on it when someone else does.

If I'm not out here being open and honest, that's a chance for other people to dictate who you, dear readers, think I am.

I don't stand for that in the face-to-face world and I'm most certainly not going to stand for it in cyberspace (where it's so much easier for it to happen).

So that's my stand on the question. What's yours? How open are you online? Do you live a double life, keeping a solid divide between onine and off? Or is it all just one big glass house?