Blogging in a vacuum

Here's another contradiction -- I have this blog, but no one is reading it (except maybe Alice). I know this is because I haven't really told very many people that I'm doing this. Right now, I like it this way. I don't feel like I'm saying anything particularly interesting or important, while the more interesting stuff of my life, I don't feel like I can put on the Internet, for fear it will be read by people who will not only be offended or alienated, but also feel exposed or betrayed.

I know very well from my involvement in various kinds of activism and the blowback I've experienced in my time (links intentionally omitted) that offending people comes with the territory. And I wouldn't have it any other way. I just wrote a book that lays it on the line for social justice in engineering. Still, there are people I dread reading that book, not because of their critique of the work, but because of how it might impact my relationships with them.

Perhaps I am still finding my voice, figuring out this new medium and how to speak my mind in ways that shine the light where it should be shone, without creating unwanted havoc in my personal relationships. And as I figure out what I have to say, it will be worth a wider conversation.