Problems, issues and the ultimate search for the 'good life'

    Yesterday I tried fixing a problem. A lovely person was caught in an unprovoked attack and I stepped it to stop it. I informed the person of the attack as a friendly warning, basically saying 'look out, I don't want you to get hurt'. Somehow this spiralled out of control and the problem has been taken to a 'virtual court' which takes the form of a discussion forum which has the aim to fix the issue.
  
  One reason I feel it went out of control is that I published the letter I wrote; why? Because a little voice in the back of my head said 'this is literary genius, share it!'. So I stubbornly did a 'copy paste' manoeuvre  and clicked 'publish. DAMN, the person's name was now in the public domain and inextricably tied to the problem! This was no longer a friendly warning but a call to mutiny! As my letter's popularity shot skyward I ripped it off the web, partly because of a mix between a friendly phone call and a gut feeling.
  
   I still think it was a rather good use of the English language, so here are a few snippets:
   
    1- 'am I just another digit? A number? An insignificant piece in a global arena of static post-modern nothingness? is it advised that I let my dreams and hopes die and wither away while I become just another employee with a decent house and family, left to continue my life living with low expectation and ultimately die unhappy surrounded by loved ones who themselves work endlessly to supply a crippled economy and disappear into the blank pages of history that go between war and genocide?'
    
   2- 'Who on earth wants a dead-end job that ends with unhappiness? When one is as confused and perplexed as I am, is there nothing here to help me achieve my goals? Am I alone in this institution of excellence and achievement to think that a university that consistently ranks in the top 20 educational institutions of the country, a country that has thousands of years of progress and greatness on a planetary scale behind it, has no advice to give me about what I can do with my life?'
    
    You can probably tell I was being a tiny bit cheeky and ill-informed with the second snippet :)
   
    I do think, however, that I've raised an important issue: the pursuit of happiness. But that's another topic for another day; this entry is mainly to keep me thinking of freedom of expression. 
A ring-leader in the attack told me 'where has freedom of expression gone?' (Not quite as politely though); my answer is that freedom of expression is still present, it's just we have to accept there are laws and boundaries. For instance, I am allowed to voice my opinion on an attack, however I broke privacy laws by naming a person directly, putting that individual 'on the spot'. If we can do anything we want then anarchy will take over.
    
   We have freedom because we accept it’s boundaries, that's democracy, it is just and it works. If we can all live with this acceptance then the pursuit of happiness may not be ever-ending.

Blog Power

I recently wrote a letter to a member in an administrative role to prevent more useless and repetitive emails from clogging everyone's inbox in my university. I published the letter on a student blog. The most popular blog entries usually get 100 hits in a week, I got 100 hits in an hour. I was advised to removed it before it got me and the person involved into trouble.

It got me thinking about the power of blogs...