I’m not a journalist, and this isn’t a professional journal. I fuck up. I get angry. I make statements I regret, usually about my own person life. [sic] I hope I hold myself accountable for uncalled for attacks, with issued apologies and retractions. I try. However, I will continue to edit out material I feel has violated personal confidences, including my own. Without making an annotation of of my actions, justifying it, or making excuses for it. I wil try harder in the future not to do this — but no guarantees.

Because, you see, that spontaneous part of me that leads me at times to write things I regret is the best part of me, not the worst. It is that part of me that is most human. It is that part of me that leads me to learn more about myself.

I like what you said about the part of you that writes things that you regret. I’ve made it a personal policy to immediately deliver apologies when I have been shown to be wrong. But I am only obligated to apologize for the things which are wrong: I do not have to apologize for my politics or for feeling upset, only for acts I commit in my zeal. Putting oneself through this act of penitence strengthens personal integrity and affirms the lesson. It also tells you much about the person who you attacked: do they accept it gracefully? Do they expect that you also change your whole outlook and say that they are right in all things? Do they continue to attack you? Do they get puffy and start to speak as if they are superior to you?

I know very very few bloggers who apologize. There seems to be a belief that apologies make you less of a person. It’s certainly buttressed by the way that I have sometimes seen mine treated. But the reflection’s on them, not on me. I’ve tried and I’ve been honest. “Yes, this was wrong to say. But I still oppose the war in Mauritius.” Apologies do not demand complete capitulation. You should give them even to an utter ass. They are for the community, for the other person if they want to accept it, and for you.

Sure, sometimes my disease gets the better of me. Sometimes some jerk runs off at the mouth and uses it to discredit everything I said. “He’s got a ‘persecution complex'” is how one yahoo put it when he declared that he “could not feel safe” with me around. He referred to something vague that I had done ten years ago and I can’t honestly remember who he is or what the context might have been. What’s worse is that first he sent me an email with the above statement and then wrote something similar on a wiki, leaving out the direct personal attack, only hinting at it. It’s clear to me that he has been guarding information in an attempt to keep me off balance and that he is attempting to play on my depression.

So what does that say about him? Not a lot.