This comment from this post of mine had elicited a couple of thoughts from my occasionally functional brain. But first do read the comment first.

maurina- you handled my comment well. i am not taking your merit away from you. you have done exceeding well for an age we shall never mention again 🙂 but save your pride for a bigger achievement. i am giving you clues to why you get more hate comments than amieheidi for example. i am not going to comment without being able to back my opinions up unlike a lot of your hate commenters (and i too think they are stupid and jealous). enlighten you? since you ask ok. do you know what it means to be a representative? it means you represent an entity/brand/person that is not yourself. and as a representative the actions you take have consequences on the thing you represent. it is your job to act in that thing’s best interest. if people dislike you they associate you with the entity and end up hating the entity too. this is easy to understand isn’t it? i have spent my life speaking to audiences and representing different high profile brands across different continents so you assume correctly that i know what it means and i know the more a representative agrees to their audience the more the thing they represent becomes noticed and praised. i have been guilty of gloating too but not in a public forum where my actions can be traced. i gloat to myself in private because i do not need to tell people i am proud of my achievements and not so often (reread your previous comments. you seem to NEED the praise).

my choice to remain anonymous should be respected if i act in a respectful manner. i have made criticisms and i have made praises. if you choose to only listen to one side of what i say it is not a reflection of my real opinion. i also wish to make my point and leave. i do not get into the habit of hanging around blogs to explain myself or make friends. what i have said is clear hence no need for names because i am not returning here. not because i am the coward you figure me to be. my belief is that you need to call someone a coward when reality is that knowing my name or who i am does not change anything, it will just give you a chance to talk bad things about that person behind their back and how productive is that really? namecalling is low and you know that having been on the receiving end. just like your blog my comments are take it or leave it and you say comments are all welcome.

me not accountable? this is not a discrepancy in a tax return. here is a lesson for you…..a stranger’s words can be more important than your friends word. your friends may be too nice to mention the things that other people notice about you. who knows maybe i am one of your friends going anonymous or someone you met recently who feels you can be better than this. the point is the observation of strangers is important because this is how 99.999999…..of the people will see you. your friends know you and can make accurate assumptions but the public will be lost. having strangers give you their opinion is the most valuable thing you can have. ask any movie studio that has pre-audience screenings and ask any company that relies on statistical analysis.

to take something and place it higher than yourself. that is being a representative.

best of luck for the future miss maurina

Unfortunately for me I hang around my blog a lot and a reply to readers such as noneedfornames (NNFN) is part of what keeps this blog running. I am however very very very glad that NNFN had taken the time and energy to explain him/herself and why he/she thinks in this way. I have said that I always appreciate constructive criticism and for that, the comment merits a respond which is as far away from being juvenile as possible, i.e, namecalling (which I do sometimes because I just want to reply to a comment which is too ridiculous to reply). Yes, surprise, I am capable of being grown up.

First of all, I stress non-annonymity while writing comments by providing at least a valid email address. I believe that when one comments annonymously, one is more prone to flaming instead of writing constructively. Of course there are exceptions but I have to say, more often, not only in my blog, but in many others, I come across spam-quality comments that personally flame the writer instead of the issue at hand. I am a strong believer on making oneself accountable for information (true or otherwise) provided online. Of course some people find this utterly useless and find the simple act of providing a valid email address to be futile, however, for a blogger such as myself, a little information goes a long long way.

Let me give out a scenario, for example, if you had given me an indication of who you are, I would’ve perhaps maybe figured out your line of work i.e. “speaking to audiences and representing different high profile brands across different continents”, and I would have reacted differently to your comment. Having a stranger come up to you saying you are wrong and shameless is different than having an expert in the field. I would’ve skipped the sarcasm and defensiveness and jumped right straight to needling tips out of you.

As bloggers, we sometimes claw desperately to find out who our readers really are, what they think, whether they think of the same thing as we do. The simple act of giving some information about yourself will save everyone a lot less time disagreeing and more time understanding, so it does make a difference.

Another thing that came up is that, it seems that being human is unacceptable in public forums. Sometimes I concoct posts without thinking and publish them without editting and proofreading, such as in the post, “Obligatory Group Photo“. They are candid and inevitably imperfect thoughts of mine somehow translated on to my blog.

I did not mean to gloat, nor I was trying to prove to anyone how successful I am. The focus is actually on the fact how the GVO Summit had inspired me and brought me out of my blogger’s block by reminding me of what I had achieved so far. It was me being proud and gratefully thankful to my Maker. A public Alhamdullilah. Of course it is partly my fault for not structuring the post properly that some people miscontrue as arrogance and shameless. Thus explains the reason why I’ve put it in a more private place which requires further clicking, and added an exclusionary clause above it.

I am aware that there are other more bigger things that one should be proud of and compared to for example, the other things that my fellow GVO authors had achieved, mine seem like small fries but that does not mean I am less proud of them. I also know that for some of those achievements, I had not done a perfect job and I acknowledge the faults that I still have. But again, Alhamdullilah, I am thankful.

I hope I had justified my human actions further. Again, I say I appreciate constructive criticism which does not exist solely to flame, whether it be from friends, or random strangers.

Another issue that had popped up is one that I have asked time and time again and yielded no answer. What makes a good representative? NNFN showed us all what it means to be a good representative, yes. He/She said what we do is associated to the entity that we are a representative of. What am I a representative of? He/She gave the example of him/her being a representative of some high profiled and international companies. But is it the same with us bloggers? When did I start being a representative?

Building on that, what do representatives normally do?

The thing is that, I’ve always thought I am only a representative of myself, and as myself, I relay information from the myself, to the Brunei Blogosphere or from the Brunei Blogosphere to GVO. I have never associated myself with any entities and thus consider myself to be an independent citizenship media. Someone who has information and a means to relay it.  I genuinely started blogging to disseminate information and my opinions. It is only recently that people pointed out to me that I represent this and that.

The reason for my detachment is because I do not want to be tied down both in writing and actions due to the fact that I represent something. I want to always remain independent and free of shackles. This is also the reason why I have so few ads on my site.

Ideally, I hope my posts would be read and understood with the perspective of a girl born and raised in Brunei, studying in UBD, happens to have a blog, happens to write for GVO.

Ideally, I prefer to not be seen as a representative of anything. But if you insist that I am, please, tell me of what I am representative of? What are you a representative of? The question is not for NNFN only but for everyone.

What are we a representative of?