Secure Shell

In the networking world there is a protocol called SSH or secure shell. The main feature over its original implementation, telnet, is to be able to provide encrypted traffic between two computers via a secure channel. In particular this is the type of communications one would utilize if they had very sensitive data that needed to be transferred back and forth, etc.

This concept got me thinking quite a bit and I've come to the realization that for most of my life I have encrypted a large part of myself. I have created my own secure shell; I haven't opened myself for the majority of people. Lately, in response to all of the trauma I have endured I've begun to open parts of myself to a wide variety of people. This could be viewed as both positive and negative depending on the circumstances. In many ways I feel like I have woken up from a long sustained slumber on living and this most certainly is a good thing. However, once you fully expose your inner contents to others there is always the possibility of immense pain and suffering. This is what has happened to me over the past few months; in many aspects I lost a large part of myself in the process. This makes me wonder if there is a way to have a balance of remaining protective and cautious, but still having the desire to connect with people in intangible ways. Perhaps the key is to be open to the idea while at the same time only dipping your toe in the water to get a full sense of its temperature. I would prefer to view others based on their better qualities but sometimes this over-idealization can lead to dangerous results; this is something I definitely will need to work on.