Openness?

Well when I said I was going to blog about openness I thought I would have something important to say. Something profound and meaningful . On the cusp of a crisis of conscience I was faced with a dilemma – do I impose on myself the kind of diplomatic censorship I accept as my due on the Northlands? There I am providing a service to a community and were I to be open there it would be a community of one, so I hold my tongue (mostly) and give others the floor. On the rare occasions that I have opened my mouth I have lost members but then I closed it again and they came back. Recently I have been confronted with my blog’s power to offend and possibly hurt others. As this struck me I felt I had a choice: 1) I stick with the ethos of openness and honesty 2) I consider poor passersby who might read and (rightly or wrongly) see themselves in my words and moderate my tone 3) I stop blogging I actually went offline while I considered this. Oddly enough at the same time others in my b