by Geoff George Paxton

Created on: March 27, 2010

Why should everyone have a personal web site?

We all hide behind masks, usually unintentionally. I have just read, for the dozenth time, The Lord of the Rings. It is interesting to watch the masks of the characters. Boromir, the son of the warden of Gondor, has illusions of grandeur, asking, “Why is my father not king — and me too after him?” These lead to his self-destruction.

I say again, we all have masks, because sub-consciously we all think, “Would they really like me if they could see me as I really am?”

Coming back to the topic — ‘Why should everyone / anyone have a personal web site?’

The answer is at two levels:

1. To create a huge and elaborate façade to hide my true self behind, as I display my make-believe mask to the world, in glorious Technicolor. You know that old joke, “You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.” It is a joke. Just reflect on the people in your neighborhood. Most turn on TV as they walk in the door, and are totally brainwashed as they watch it uncritically all the time.

2. We all are passionate about something — even if only peanut-butter sandwiches. In a personal web site it is possible to be passionate, to let it shine through. “The web site is mine, is it not? Why should I not be passionate if I please?”

That is actually another reason for having your own web site. It is yours, and nobody can tell you what to do on it. It is an opportunity to be creative for yourself. Who cares if nobody sees it? But they will, and many will sit up and take notice.

Do you have a deep-seated desire to be creative, perhaps to draw or paint. After all, if Picasso could do it, why can’t you? If you are like me, people laughed at my first creative attempts with pencil and paints, but now, with some of the creative software available – drawing packages like Microsoft® Paint or Draw from OpenOffice.org® – you can be the new Picasso on the block – I mean, web.

To change the subject a bit – don’t worry, we will be back on track soon – are you frustrated, like me, at all the letters you receive that are written using ugly Times New Roman? This is compounded by the use of double-carriage returns at the end of every paragraph. This indicates a lack of sophistication in the users of the word-processing software. It takes very little effort to set up a template

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