When I was young, I used to hang around on an online forum. The forum’s founder was a wonderful German guy. He took special interest in me and encouraged me to learn things. It was because of him that I started learning PHP, CSS, HTML. He gave me free web hosting and even bought me a domain name. Apart from him, no body else liked me on the forum.
The reason for my unpopularity on the forum was simply that I was arrogant and rude. I admit that I knew nothing about anything at all. Yet I pretended to be know-it-all. I was also very opinionated and very good at trolling. Thankfully this phase of mine didn’t last very long and I realized my place in the world pretty soon.
I am a moderator on a very active Facebook group, called Pakistani Probloggers. We have a guy just like me on the forum. Well not exactly like me, I think this guy is much more arrogant, inconsiderate, rude, and basically a smart troll. Each day other users and moderators have complains against him, and each day he has complains against moderators and other users. Since he is a smart troll, he is kind of always good at presenting his case which makes him look so right. I know this very well because I was a smart troll myself.
He made me realize how annoying I was, and how kind, generous, and considerate was the moderator of our little online community was. He knew I had some kind of talent and he made me use it and he left a huge impact on my life. For that I will be eternally grateful to him. He told me that even though I was right but I am not fair to other people and I should not provoke and troll other users. I didn’t understand how bad I was. I thought other users are jealous of me.
I was so naive at that time, the world looked so simple to me, I thought I could do anything I wanted to do. In real life I was a very shy introvert with no social skills at all. But on the online world, I felt so confident, charming, manipulative and even cunning at times.
I am a grown up now and understand that the world is nothing like it seemed. It is a complicated place, people are not as easy going and as forgiving as I thought they were. Conquering the world is not an easy task and I am not that special.
But I miss the guy I used to be. The world from his eyes looked like such a fun little place.
