Hundreds and thoosans

I am actually going to scream. In a hellish alignment of technical glitches (phone, laptop, camera, email, internet connection) this is the eighth attempt to write this... Maybe the blip gods just don't want me to speak out.

I've been scratching my head all day trying to come up with something impressive for my100th blipday. Milestones here seem to be important here. However my day got hijacked by a whole heap of work and I was left at 23:15 taking a picture of this. Hundred and thousands cake decorations. The crumbs left at the bottom. Which kinda says it all...

I wanted to reflect on my thoughts after 100 blips..
- Am I any happier than when I started? (hmm let me come back to you. A bit maybe.)
- Am I any better at taking pictures? (clearly NO!)
- Am I any better at writing? (cough, nope)
- Do I regret any? (Yes, one most definitely)
- Would I change any? (Loads.. famine or feast some days)
- How am I doing as a blipper? (I'd give me 7/100 as that's how many I can just about stomach so far without cringing or getting bored to death - this entry being in the latter category I think. 6 subscribers sort of says that too)

But then I started thinking. 100 days of blipping has helped me realise that we're all a bit pre-occupied about what people think of us online. It's great to have all these wonderful new channels of self expression, aye, but... who is really themselves on here? Everyone, if they're honest, will admit a little dishonesty or self-censorship. Online identity management? We must all toe the line somewhere between caution and humiliation. Would the world be a better or more dangerous place if we all said what we really felt? or showed what we really saw? ("here's my big ol' bear poo from this morning", "here's me drinking in the wee hours stalking my ex", "here's my desk which is all I've seen today", "Here's me watching telly and wondering where my life went" etc..)

Obviously the offline world started it. We all hide behind social persona's, ego's etc.. the online world is no different. Only it is. It seems to be more intense. Next time you find yourself worried about what you are posting examine why. It's told me a lot about who I want to appear to be and what kind of society we live in and the restrictions we really live under. To appear cool, clever, attractive, wealthy etc.. or even just the fear that that annoying berk at work or distant relative will see it.

Don't get me wrong, I can't extricate myself anymore than you can, it's just that I didn't realise until I had to post a blip everyday. It's made me think a lot more about the edited realities we post. How unavoidable it is, how we all do it, how maybe there's a kind of "truth" transmitted in those fictions anyway. If I can't change the inevitable distortion of a thought as I edit it and send to a laptop screen, I can at least try to see as many of them as I can from all over the world, from all kinds of people... Hundreds and thousands of them.. something like Blip actually.

(see now this picture seems more meaningful, it wasn't!)