Posting on the net- new age graffiti ?

            Posting on The Net- New age graffiti?

     As a frequent poster on the net, I sometimes wonder who reads my stories. Like graffiti artists the world over, my message appears but briefly and then is subsumed into the digital morass of the world-wide net. In that I have Three books written, 350 stories and 85 travel articles, in my files, I sometimes forget that I have already posted one piece or another. Kindly friends and understanding editors usually gently remind me that they have already read the piece. I think they are concerned that I may be slipping into the netherworlds of the forgotten ones. Like many people, of a certain age, I do indeed forget things sometimes.

     But, like any curator wandering through a collection, I often meander amidst my own body of work, editing, rewriting and amending pieces, wishing that I had said or phrased an idea differently, or explained some concept more fully. We all live in the land of “Things I wish I had said.” This wisdom generally descends on us the morning after a spirited conversation or confrontation when you match wits with someone in an attempt to promote your own theory or discredit theirs. Like duffers in golf, life would be more comfortable if we all got to take the occasional Mulligan for a comment issued in haste. Compassionate friends usually cut you some slack and say “I knew what you meant, foggeddabout it.” Others hold you to the literal utterance and save the ammunition for future use.

       So, if you come upon a posting of mine that you recognize, just shrug your shoulders. I probably am just reiterating an idea, for emphasis, perhaps when a compatible issue is raised in the media. Or, maybe I was just rephrasing something that I wish I had said better the first time. In the final analysis, all written graffiti fades and disappears  with the shifting winds and sands of time. Like a temporal emery board, the elements erase the evidence of what was and prepare a clean slate for the generations yet to come.

                                                 -30-

                                          ( 340 words)

                                    Joseph Xavier Martin