It's empowering, alright. When you can freely express
what you feel, that could be a liberating experience. When you can air
out your opinions without being shushed and without any editing from someone,
the feeling is great. But this could edge towards feeding that dark side of you
who thirsts for power... that dark half who, if not properly guarded, could be
unleashed and distort the real you.
When the use of internet and the social networks
peaked, a lot of unheard voices came to the open. For persons who encourage
communication, an arena for building ideas was being opened. A lot poured their
souls to the screen and let their emotions smear the cyber space. There's
nothing wrong with the concept of the freedom of speech... I even had an open
mind to those who blog with misspelled and abbreviated words. I kept a
democratic thinking for those whose syntax are being filled with phrases and
sentences which could not be accepted by my English 101 teacher in college.
Someone remarked that the effort of expressing is more important than the
grammar and the like... OK.
But bashing and bullying are two different
issues. I would really wonder why people are compelled to curse and become
mean in an avenue where a lot could misinterpret them. I believe that we have
the right to be angry and be hurt but we also have the right to preserve our
dignity and the real us by thinking sanely before pounding the keys that would
translate our feelings to become words. Why not smash a bottle nearby and see
the shards fly rather than unleash that dark half which could be identified
to you by the worldwide viewers?
"Our words, even our clothes, masquerade as
our identities, they are the things to signal who we are," this is a nifty
line from that play on shadows. And that could be the guidepost of our
shout-outs and tweets. But who am I to tell you this? There's still that
freedom that we are hungry of, right? But what about our relationships? Our
fleeting feelings won't be there forever (for isn't it scary to be angry for
all eternity?) but the ties that bind us could be constant. Yes we could break
them but we could also choose not to.
I've seen a lot of word wars lately. I don't have
the right to judge the "warriors". They are passionate enough to make
their own stands. I could mind my own business but the ripples reached my
habitat. These ripples could bother me as well since the hurt and the angry are
PEOPLE. Both of the sides are mothers, fathers, sisters, aunts, uncles,
brothers and sisters... Why not treasure the real things than that which are
only on the emotional level? I could not hug anger. I could not shake hands
with hate...
But, I could build bridges rather than walls!
Yes, I could do that and become proactive rather
than reactive. There are things to do rather than yack about. I need to translate my words into actions, rather, I need my actions to speak for themselves.
How could I be credible enough to judge a contemporary dance when I don't know how to do a pirouette?