I don't know what is about what you wrote Steve, you've written about authenticity before, but my whole paradigm has shifted.
I've been introverted and reserved for the longest time. I've had trouble communicating with people simply because I didn't want to be rejected by them for who I am or who I was.
For instance, a few years ago I was part of an organized password stealing group. We'd trick people into giving us their passwords and then completely nuke their accounts, as well as any of their other accounts that used the same password. The group grew and grew, until we were brute-force cracking password hashes from large website databases. I had no motive. I was just an extremely miserable kid.
A few months after that, I started talking to someone on forum quite often. He was a good guy, and we were extremely like-minded and with similar interests. However, somehow the topic came up about how he had all his passwords stolen along with some of his friends--particularly, at the same time I targeted those very sites. I just completely stopped talking to him. I couldn't get over myself and say, "Sorry, I was one of the people who messed up all your accounts."
Even today I'm still not being completely authentic with people. I've always felt a huge barrier between me and other people, and now I understand why.
Thanks for the post Steve. I've got a lot of work to do.
