AKMA wrote on authenticity and referenced me in his work. He wrote:
Or to put it another way (because I admire Shelley, and I want to share out my links), if we were to find out that the Burning Bird’s phoenix-song were very carefully composed, to convey the effect of having been written by someone very much like the Shelley we imagine when we read her heartfelt, sometimes very pointed, clarion-calls — would that be inauthentic? What degree of deliberation and painstaking composition disqualify a recording or literary work from the category of “authenticirty”? A brilliantly gifted writer, after all, may well be able to depict impassioned spontaneity with utterly convincing prose. Is it only authentic if she really felt it?
I am honored that AKMA included me, as I have always admired him tremendously. His writing is like a mirror with which to see oneself and decide if what we see is really what we want to continue seeing.
Is it only authentic if she really felt it. Such depth hidden in simple words. How do we answer? How do I answer?
I do enjoy writing about technology, and yes I am an impassioned warrier for openness among our peers, and equality among our ranks. I’m not afraid to go toe to toe, and have made friends, and lost them, doing so. I am passionate; there is no fakery there–no practiced art of writing in order to deceive. I believe, with all my heart, in the cause for women, gay rights, and the struggle to save what little we can of the environment.
I reject that we are seen, too frequently, as either a commodity to be sold; or a patsy to buy what others are selling.
I like debate, and though I am not fireproof, can usually stand the heat. More so now than in the past, but that’s because I’ve become somewhat tempered these last few years. I like to think I am even and just and though I will blast the tiger to save the kitten, I will swat the kitten when its greedy.
I know, though, that I have also hurt in my single minded pursuit of rightness. I have been thoughtless. I have been too quick to temper. And I have been vain.
Is this writing authentic? Is it, as the dictionary would claim, real and genuine? Yes, because I don’t write what I don’t believe–that depth of feeling that AKMA references.
No, though, because it is not complete.