Minefield

I’ve been in a funny place. I’ve not been quiet – I’ve been posting blogs all over the place, but wishing to put some distance between myself and them is a sign I feel overexposed. People are reading this for the wrong reasons so I’ve taken myself away, posting hither and thither to avoid my thoughts going awry, or even closing down whole websites so they don’t get seen by the wrong pair of eyes. Being honest (by which I mean my own version of the truth) means not always being nice, but this conflicts with not wanting to upset anyone, not least when I believe this blog has a fallout and not an entirely positive one. Yet writing it has become a compulsion.

Writing is not, in itself a crime, and yet the plight of people like Raif Badawi, the Saudi blogger sentenced to 1000 lashes for airing his views about democracy, are well known. Those drawing attention to wrongdoing are often easier to silence than wrongdoers themselves (wrongdoing being inevitably a byproduct of power). I don’t claim to do anything nearly so dangerous, or as worthy, and yet when posts are misinterpreted, and the fallout affects my children (like, say losing a job because of something I wrote about the workplace a year ago, or when people who feel I may have upset – which probably says as much about their sense of guilt as my finger pointing – or whatever it may be) it feels real, however paranoid I may be being. The fact is, I never know who has read what, as this post articulates more widely, and the fact I’m feeling anxious suggests I feel my opinion is dangerous, and the consequences are out of my control once I have hit publish.

Like quantum physics, it begs the question, is something only real until it is observed? – the moment someone puts pen to paper to articulate something, does it make them more culpable than the person doing the thing in the first place?

I ask because I write about a whole range of things, from the innocuous and inconsequential to the scandalous and thought-provoking, but some things are clearly more controversial than others, however much I may cloak them in a veneer of anonymity. Writing about the local school or the workplace are clearly conduits for pissing people off, some of whom may have power over me one way or another, however neutral my observations; the observers themselves may not always come from a neutral stand point, and because it is me who has articulated the thing they disagree with, inevitably I am the one condemned for it, or, at least, the one who has to suffer the consequences, however wrong the thing I may have been drawing attention to in the first place.

It’s a minefield, and one I’m struggling to negotiate. But I don’t want to write about innocuous things all the time, for all a post about a new coat or a trip out with the kids, might provide light relief to some of my darker philosophisings. I guess if I am going to continue to write about potentially controversial or deeply personal issues, I will need to start, in the illustrious words of Mumsnet blogger Sarah Knight,  giving fewer fucks because – though we all have thoughts, prejudices, grievances and agendas, even if we don’t air them – by giving voice to them, it’s easy to become the target of other people’s