Assimilation

From the dictionary.com iPhone app:

4. Sociol. the merging of cultural traits from previously distinct cultural groups, not involving biological amalgamation.

Of course, anyone who has watched the Borg from Star Trek know that they involve biological amalgamation... but that's a distraction.

In the past, I have been afraid of putting too much personal detail in an anonymous blog because I am afraid that somebody somewhere will figure out it's me.  And then I might feel the need to censor myself.  Ironically, ignoring, of course, that I was already censoring myself, but we'll put that aside for the moment.

I have a friend who blogs regularly who doesn't use his real name as his handle, refers to his wife as Mrs. Handle (or for this, for example, it would be Mrs.BorgBlog), and tries to call his kids by different names to protect their privacy.  But he has been sloppy, and I don't know if he even thinks he has any reasonable modicum of anonymity.

Recently, though, I have found a few blogs where if I didn't know better, I would swear they were written by friends.  And, frankly, the definitive reason why I know that they weren't, on some occasions, because we can all change the details to protect the innocent, was knowing that they were spending time with me when they would otherwise supposedly be blogging.  (Yes, I know you can time delay posts, but, really there were other details that confirmed it). 

I have also found a message board where I have started sharing information, again, very conscious not to give too many incriminating details so that someone might realize it was ME. 

(And we'll just ignore the huge ego issues that I've just raised that anyone really cares it's ME or whatever....)

On the message board, I have seen and I have written: "I could have written that".  We find our experiences to be so similar.  Where we might otherwise have felt alone, we now find comfort in realizing we are not.  My fears that someone who knows me and knows my issue bringing me to the message board would be able to pick me out of the crowd is unfounded. 

I've also fallen in love with The Bloggess.  I am most definitely not her.  But there are several entries (usually NOT the ones involving taxidermied animals) where I think, WOW, I could have written that. 

And so I realize, that even if you think you know who this is, you're probably wrong.  I may remind you of your hysterical neighbor (as in funny, I hope, and not crazy) down the street, the girl you grew up with, a former lover, a best friend, a woman you really hated, but that's probably someone else.  It's probably not me. 

Our experiences while seeming unique to ourselves are also universal. 

Some have said that there are no new stories to write.  I don't know whether that is true or not.  Fortunately, I'm not in the fiction business.  I just finished reading John Grisham's The Confession, and I found it quite thought-provoking.  And then I picked up a recent Scott Turow book and decided to take a quick review of his other books to remind me of the potential connections, because usually his books connect to each other in some way.  And I was reminded of the book Reversible Errors which I have read, and re-reading the plot summary realized it was the same basic underlying plot as I had just read in Grisham's book.

Okay - that was a detour.

When one becomes assimilated into the Collective, they become one with another, and all of their memories are now part of the collective.  There is no unique "I" in Borg.  There is just Borg.

 So while you think you may know me, you probably don't.  Or rather you may know me, because my experiences are similar to yours or those you do know.  But you do not know my identity. 

You can simply call me Seven of Nine. 

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