Protection of the innocent, the guilty, and that creepy guy at the mall.

This post was inspired by a comment by The Angel and Demon Within. I hope she doesn't mind the shout out, for it may attract the bandwidth-breaking traffic of the person who reads this blog.

Pseudonyms. There are many. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, more commonly known as Lewis Carroll. Often today suspected of being a pedophile. Is that why he called himself Lewis Carroll? Because when he had it, his relationship with the real Alice in Wonderland was considered perfectly normal.

Eric Arthur Blair. Political writer. More commonly known as George Orwell. Did he hide his identity because he didn't want Russia to kill him?

I wonder vaguely if others tried to use pseudonyms, but couldn't, because their name sounded so damn charismatic.

DO they use it to hide? Some do. Many anonymous bloggers use pseudonyms, myself included, because certain details could be, shall we say incriminating in later years. Some may use it to disassociate themselves with it, in their own mind. Perhaps David Berkowitz used the moniker "Son of Sam" to make himself believe he wasn't responsible for it..... Although with him, I think it was more so he wouldn't get arrested and executed for murder.

Yet that begs the question. They say serial killers like BTK are megalomaniacs of the highest degree, so why use a different name? Sure it's something to say the police can't find BTK, but another thing entirely to say they can't find Dennis Rader, who lives at this exact address.

Englebert Humperdinck.

Aw fuck, I'm not even going to try that one.

Is it the mystery? Is it more mysterious to say that "Opalia Darkknight" wrote a book than Jane Smithson?

Snicket does it to make the story seem interesting. Kal Penn does it to get more jobs. Voltaire did it because no one wants to think that the man who wrote Candide was 5 feet tall.

But if that's the case, why did Napoleon stick to it.

For all purposes, I shall remain nameless. I picked "Greg" because it's generic.

And to be perfectly clear, if anyone wouldn't tell the difference, I'd change it to....Phil. Or maybe Dick.

If I'm being completely honest, I have no intention of ever doing anything productive here

It's true. I am totally apathetic to this blog as of right now. Perhaps I will have an epiphany and elect to painstakingly type out my innermost dreams and fears for all the world to see under the pseudonym of "Greg".

Then again, maybe I'll be a cheeky bastard and leave this, until some random soul, two years from now, looks at a comment "Greg" made on someone's blog and find his merry way here only to discover two posts, one adorably witty one here, and another one about the moldy cheese in my refrigerator to be posted in six weeks.

My title is Apathetic Empathy for a reason. I can tell for a fact you want to know what it is, but I really just don't give a shit. I could also have called it Empathetic Apathy, but I've noticed that I like the word "Apathetic" more than "Empathetic"

I really don't care what you call me, but my aformentioned pseudonym is "Greg". I've actually never been a fan of that name, and chose it on the fly.

Does revealing this fact make anyone take me less seriously? Does it make people assume I am a liar? Will anyone be liking it up to this point and say "OMUGOSH, EETZ NOT HIS RAEL NAEM!!!!1111" and abandon it to the wolves?

You can call me Apathetic Empathizer if you wish. You can call me Betty St. Divine if you want. Call me anything you want.

Just don't call the thought police.