I can has Professionalism?

I have been brooding, imagining a blog devoted to my pursuits in research, medicine, philosophy and perhaps even literature. In this site, I would post my name, email, picture, papers, institutional affiliation, the whole lot. It be a shout into the void, but it would be a more focused void, and in my wild fantasies, nobel laureates would send me emails that start with "Why, that is fascinating ---, i have been thinking that all along, and my what a delightful precocious young scholar you are! Why don't you come by my office and lets write a book together on the matter..." However, this would mean dropping the various references to drugs, sex, and the unrelenting detractions from human dignity known as my daily life.

Wouldn't it?

What does it amount to, having one's perpetual rough draft, the chaotic inner studio of the mind in such a pseduo-public sphere?

The NYTimes, zion of the print media, although certainly a beat or two behind, and a lumbering giant still, is no less nimble enough in translating the trends. And with its weight of printed stacks, it lends an authority to the ether of the brave new world of shouting in the cosmic internet void.

Some points of consideration

(1) For certain personality types, the particular technology of the internet invites, tempts and deliciously seduces one into ejecting heartfelt personal thoughts into this public space


(2) There is a danger in ejecting your authentic, heartfelt personal thoughts into the public spehre

There are obvious discomforts. Your workplace superiors or distant relatives googling photos of your Friday night indiscretions. Or the threat to one's professional reputation--there's shit sometimes you just don't want to know about your doctor or your lawyer or school teachers, no matter how articulate they may be about their passion for [insert unusual, unseemly hobby here]. And perhaps you just don't want everybody up in your bizzz-nas.

Exposed
By EMILY GOULD
Published: May 25, 2008
"What I gained — and lost — by writing about my intimate life online."

The woman who wrote this is exactly my age. At first I was deeply excited, and admired her and was excited for someone who was able to capture the experience for the masses. By the end of the article, something...repulsed me. Perhaps it was the facts of her life style, the snarky commentary for which she earned her fame and paychecks. But then maybe it is something more profound...the essence of the struggle was how willing she was able to shove her vulnerability in the faces of others--and how the internet made it easy. And indeed, her article shamelessly diced her dark moments, not tastelessly, but certainly viscerally, even for a newspaper column. Perhaps there is something intrinsically off putting about this. Perhaps especially nauseating when it is a shame to which one relates--like she is the Britney Spears of the blogosphere, the sacrifice from which we project our comparatively minor, but equally gross over-exposures.


(3) There is great benefit to be harnessed from the dynamic networking that this particular technology also invites.

The Obama Connection
By ROGER COHEN
Published: May 26, 2008
Barack Obama’s grasp of Internet-driven networking comes from his conviction that in a globalized world sociability is a force as strong as sovereignty.

I mean, its fucking big.

(4) And what of the authentic self?

Our brains are crazy complex, our ability to socialize--to judge friend, foe, relate, express, love, retaliate--ours are the most outrageously complex of the living world. So even as the species itself drastically change the name of the game within generations, we furiously adapt to keep pace and play with a new zealous mastery. But there seems to be needs, desires, inclinations that stay the same, that drive on robustly

The Library in the New Age
By Robert Darnton
The New York Review of Books
Volume 55, Number 10 · June 12, 2008

Among them--the desire to be authentic. As a matter of fact--sex, drugs, cursing, daily humiliation, pouty railings against the system--these too are so integral to my intellectual life, to becoming a good physician, to becoming a good citizen, a poet, a philosopher, friend and family member. And there is that difficult to resist self righteousness--surely, if I am a woman of integrity (and I am), then I have nothing to hide, nothing for which I am afraid to account.

But I think in the end, there are more important things than the fierce egoism of self aggrandized nobility in character. For one: relationships--both intimate and professional. For another: the work, which is worth being cleared of all the distracting garbage (however fascinating) from which it rises.

So yes, it is not only good manners, but considerate, good reasoning, and virtuous to clear away the rambling of the authentic self when presenting papers at the conference; or when in the clinic; or even when at the dinner table with beloveds. The clarity allows one to open up to ideas and others. But to nurture the underlying authenticity, the right thing to do is to have the safe places one does let down the guard and pour the rawness of emotion, the sloppiness of rough drafts, the intuitions that drive the argument, and the desires that fuel it all. The work bench, good teachers, and the pub table of trusted comrades.

And when one's life is so fractured, that such space becomes endangered? When it is 3 am and one has inappropriately converted one's eblogger into the madwoman's soapbox on the sneaking suspiciou that the best place to hide is in the crowds, where people pay the least attention of all?

(5) Maybe i'll just start a facebook group.