This thought may prove unpopular but I suppose writing it down helps to counter the comment that I am making (don't you just love irony?)

After being part of Everything for a few months now I have found myself falling into an all too easy trap - the trap of emotional prostitution.
It is very easy to see that one of the quickest ways of picking up points is to pour your heart out into the server. The deeper you go, the more points you pick up. It seems to be a case of almost encouraging people to blurt out their emotional baggage, possibly before they are ready, just to get a few extra points and maybe go up a level. I am not criticising emotional nodes, They are are an essential part of Everything. Nor am I criticising voting because I like votes as much as the next men. So I suppose what I am criticising is the possibility of people writing their closest secrets just to gain votes. I have been tempted to do it, and surely others have too.

This feels inherently wrong to me - giving away such powerful emotions for such a cheap price. When I surf Everything I want to be sure that emotional noders are noding for an ulterior motive so that the next time I come across such a node - I will know that the author has got something worthwhile for such a difficult contribution, for some reason - that's important to me. After all, everybody wants to help, don't they?

The reason why I began by saying that this thought may be unpopular is because I feel that I am thinking in a way that is opposing 'the system'. Why do I always oppose the system? I know a lot of people write a lot of deep stuff - and I am sure that a large proportion of the writers have a more genuine reason than just to gain points or popularity, after all - Everything isn't a popularity contest. But I want to encourage anyone who is about to write a deep node to consider what they expect to get out of exposing their innerselves to this microcosm and whether it is worth it. I have written some stuff, possibly to get points but mainly to get feedback - I want people to add to my nodes, I want them to stop, think and then give me their conclusions. Well, that's my hidden agenda anyway, what's yours?

Here's my take on it:

I have poured tons of my emotional baggage into Everything (see my personal hyacinth girl and related nodes), and I was duly rewarded. But I'm not talking about XP here. I don't really give a shit about that. What I did get was a few dozen sympathetic ears, and some suggestions about how to let go. And it felt really good to open up to all these people, secure in my semi-anonymity. It made me feel better. Emotional prostitution? Maybe. But not for votes, not for XP, just purely for the emotional release I got out of it.

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