Character

In the past week and a half, I have explored countless blogs. I have seen writings on regret, hypocracy, taking risks, need, suffering, reality, uncertainty, friendship, forbidden love, etc.

Someone defined a person's character as "what you do when you think no one's looking." I believe that to be a true definition. So, in a way, blogs define the characters of millions of anonymous people. I ran a google search for "blog" and had over 4 million hits. That's a lot of people in a semi-anonymous forum posting their deepest thoughts and feelings for complete strangers to stagger across.

Again, this is a semi-anonymous environment. After all, if we don't want anyone to know about our blogs, we don't have to tell them. But it is also like a secret. Sooner or later, it will be discovered. And in the discovering, we learn a massive amount about people we only thought we knew.

For instance, I discovered yesterday that my husband has had one of these since August.* I read about some of his deepest thougths. Thoughts and feelings he felt he couldn't share with me. I also read some of the most beautiful writing I've ever seen. And I majored in English. That means I've seen a lot of beautiful writing. His was unbelievable. I was humbled. I always thought I was the writer of the family. Now, I'm not so sure. That's one reason I started this blog. To write and publish. It is a start.

Back to character. If I'm right about the word, then I saw pieces of my husband's true character yesterday. He never in a million years believed that I would ever see his writing. He was wrong. I discovered that his character is not without flaws, but as he is human, I'm not suprised. My own has flaws. We are all flawed. But what I saw revealed that I was right about him all those years ago. I was right to trust this man with my heart, mind, body, and soul. What a relief!

What wasn't a relief was reading the blogs of people I semi-know. People who have written rather eloquently on the subjects of conscience, guilt, and hypocracy. But these people have no concience at all and I know this from personal interactions with them.**

*Dr Pop's blog is gone now. :( That's a true shame.
**Edited slightly on 2/7/08 to leave out unnecessary details that are moot at this point