I'm a writer and I'm good enough at it to have suffered some devastating real-life consequences. The terrifying thing isn't shouting into the void, and it isn'

I'm a writer and I'm good enough at it to have suffered some devastating real-life consequences. The terrifying thing isn't shouting into the void, and it isn't being visible to everyone. It's the adverse combination of the two. When you need to be heard is when your status has taken a dive or something bad has happened... at which point, people just want you to go away because you're depressing them. On the other hand, every little thing you write that could one day be attributed to you is available to any authoritarian government or employer (the euphemism we use for authoritarian private governments) on a three-second Google search... and, since these people have bad intentions, can only be used against you. HR people don't Google you because they think you're a fascinating person; they do it because protecting the company from someone with internet dirt is one more scalp to display at annual review time. Also, when I had a successful blog, I found that a lot of my best posts were ignored, whereas the good stuff that really deserved to get exposure barely got noticed. It feels like influence but it really isn't because people stop listening as soon as you say something that makes them uncomfortable. I enjoy writing but the percentage of people who will gain anything by doing it in public under their real name, in this time of belligerent capitalist authoritarianism, is very very low.