err0r.net

Over the past couple of months i’ve been having a huge internal debate as to what my future will be online. Including my future with tg007.net. I’ve spent so long online trying to help people. Trying my best to help those I consider my friends and those I barely know. Hours upon hours of helping other people with their problems. For the most part the people i’ve helped have been grateful. I’ve never asked for public thanks for what I do. Most of it is done behind the scenes with few people even knowing I had a hand in it. But with all that, it only takes one person to shoot it all down. I’m at the point where i’m ready to quit the site i’ve worked on so hard for years and I have no idea why. It used to be so important to me. Lately, it’s different. It’s not about building friendships anymore. I’m tired of defending who I am and why I do what I do. I think I should be past that. My actions of the past should be enough to show people I don’t think i’m better than anyone else. I’ve done nothing in the past to show that I think or act that way. Maybe it’s just a combination of things. Or a build up of a feeling over the years. I try to see the good in people and many times that bites me in the ass. I’m always more willing to help people than to ask for or accept help myself. I think i’ve given more than i’ve taken over the years. So why is it that one twit can make me question all of it. Could be just the wrong thing said and the right time. Maybe it’s just a slight push of an already leaning rock. I know what i’ve done online isn’t anything special though i’d like to think that i’ve played a positive part in some people’s lives. I have a few regrets over the years but I can not say I would have done things any different. I stick by what I think is right regardless of what anyone else thinks, because at the end of the day when i push away from the pc I have to be ok with my decisions. I’ve spent years learning the things I know about design and I’m letting one n00b get to me with his mindless accusations. I was questioned as to my right to use the word More… I surf so many sites writing down ideas from here and there and bookmarking css files that contain things i wasn’t aware of. I use the stuff I find to make free layouts for others to use. And I know the people that download them aren’t really going to use them as they are. It’s just like mirc scripts. People download them and pick them apart to see how it works. It’s the way i’ve learned over the years. I know the stuff I make at best is only going to be picked apart to see how it’s done. I have no problem with that. I understood that going into it. I’d rather one person learn how to do it themselves from looking at something i’ve done than 100 people just use the layout because they don’t want to learn. Lucky for err0r he jokes all that stuff off. Never really lets it get to him. The only problem is err0r is fading away and leaving only me. Maybe i’m just tired. Tomorrow may bring a renewed vigor. I’ll end this whine fest with my favorite poem.

Current Mood

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Don’t be fooled by me.
Don’t be fooled by the face I wear
For I wear a mask. I wear a thousand masks-
masks that I’m afraid to take off
and none of them are me.
Pretending is an art that’s second nature with me
but don’t be fooled,
for God’s sake, don’t be fooled.
I give you the impression that I’m secure
That all is sunny and unruffled with me
within as well as without,
that confidence is my name
and coolness my game,
that the water’s calm
and I’m in command,
and that I need no one.
But don’t believe me. Please!

My surface may be smooth but my surface is my mask,
My ever-varying and ever-concealing mask.
Beneath lies no smugness, no complacence.
Beneath dwells the real me in confusion, in fear, in aloneness.
But I hide this.
I don’t want anybody to know it.
I panic at the thought of my
weaknesses
and fear exposing them.
That’s why I frantically create my masks
to hide behind.
They’re nonchalant, sophisticated facades
to help me pretend,
To shield me from the glance that
knows.
But such a glance is precisely my salvation,
my only salvation,
and I know it.

That is, if it’s followed by acceptance,
and if it’s followed by love.
It’s the only thing that can liberate me from myself
from my own self-built prison walls

I dislike hiding, honestly
I dislike the superficial game I’m playing,
the superficial phony game.
I’d really like to be genuine and me.
But I need your help, your hand to hold
Even though my masks would tell you otherwise
That glance from you is the only thing that assures me
of what I can’t assure myself,
that I’m really worth something.

But I don’t tell you this.
I don’t dare.
I’m afraid to.
I’m afraid you’ll think less of me, that you’ll laugh
and your laugh would kill me.
I’m afraid that deep-down I’m nothing,
that I’m just no good
and you will see this and reject me.

So I play my game, my desperate, pretending game
With a facade of assurance without,
And a trembling child within.
So begins the parade of masks,

The glittering but empty parade of masks,
and my life becomes a front.
I idly chatter to you in suave tones of surface talk.
I tell you everything that’s nothing
and nothing of what’s everything,
of what’s crying within me.
So when I’m going through my routine
do not be fooled by what I’m saying
Please listen carefully and try to hear
what I’m not saying
Hear what I’d like to say
but what I can not say.

It will not be easy for you,
long felt inadequacies make my defenses strong.
The nearer you approach me
the blinder I may strike back.
Despite what books say of men, I am irrational;
I fight against the very thing that I cry out for.
you wonder who I am
you shouldn’t
for I am everyman
and everywoman
who wears a mask.
Don’t be fooled by me.
At least not by the face I wear.