A fine young man told me the other day, over drinks at the Labour Party’s ever-latish New Year do, that he regularly follows my writings all over the local media. I was flattered. Now, I thought, here’s someone from a later generation than mine who appreciates the effort it takes to meet deadlines and to keep up with one’s various weekly writing commitments.

As I naively savoured the moment, he then chose to be kinder by offering me a list of Internet links from which, he explained with an obvious glint in his eye, one could get an incessant supply of quips and quotations to use on any subject under the sun. I almost thanked him – before I suddenly felt the marble floor under my feet cracking and caving in. Was he trying to insinuate something or was he just trying to be helpful?

Then it hit me. It was an honest enough offer, sparked and abetted no doubt by the immensely instinctive dependence that many people, particularly young people, have on the Internet today. The fathomless sources that exist on the Net have no doubt made things easier for a lot of those who seek information as fast and as reliable as possible. While it is true that each and every one of us in modern society has become a “journalist”, always ready and willing to communicate by submitting news and views, there is the disquieting tendency to play down creativity and to undermine creative writing by overwhelmingly and explicitly ill-using those very sources available at the touch of a single button.

The problem has become a source of serious worry to universities and other educational institutions everywhere as written assignments, and even to a large extent theses, have, now on a regular basis, to be filtered for copying, plagiarism and even downright cheating. The Net has dealt creativity a mighty huge blow. Students of whichever age find it can also be a source of embarrassment with tutors, lecturers and administrators alike, who are becoming ever more efficient at unmasking the cheat and the fraud in a class of otherwise genuine and eager students.

This is not to belittle the phenomenon that is the Internet. Its value cannot be overstated. A globalised, massive system of communication and an instant provider of news and graphic information on anything and anyone, it will continue to change the world and society as a whole. It will also continue to irritate the more vulnerable democracies by its free display of liberal characteristics in a happily censorship-free environment as much as it will embarrass the still closed and often brutal administrations such as those of China, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Of course we very rarely hear anything about the latter’s official distrust of the Internet and Internet users in general, as it happens to be a political ally of the West.

There is every reason for the writer, the communicator and the artist to rejoice in the very existence of the Internet. It has given them the worldwide platform they seek. Of course they will have to contend with the fact their output is just a tiny drop in a monstrously big ocean that is ever-changing and expanding, and the other undeniable fact that only a few really hit the big time with their wares. But is it not exciting to have our artists, our poets, our writers, our cooks, our environmentalists, our mathematicians, our singers and all our creators of new ideas and projects to be there with the rest of them, competing for attention and finally ridding themselves of the small, constricting and prohibitive nature of the territorial size of one’s own country?

Is it not wonderful for local journalists in any given country to be able to communicate with such ease and to “internationalise” their commitment to stories and causes via the Net? There is no longer the comfort of strictly dealing locally with local events. If Minister George Pullicino has chosen to publicly insult a retired civil servant and respected environmentalist, the whole world gets to know about it. If this does not give him any sleepless nights, it merely shows the extent of utter decay that the present Maltese government has fallen into.

The Internet is a sublime weapon, but it cuts both ways. Your mistakes and/or misconceptions come back to haunt you endless times. We all have our angels and demons roaming in cyber space, a constant reality we have to accept. There is only one way to contain it, perhaps not always convincingly, and that is through creativity. The more you produce the more likely you are at getting blogged and re-blogged, sometimes mercilessly. The blogging process has the sinister habit of turning into a chopping machine that has all the finesse and slick competence of Madame Guillotine. Still, it is a world we cannot escape from and in which we should, in positive contrast, be more disposed to join rather than shun.

Those of us who remember, for example, having to cross the whole of London to have a black-and-white picture or story transmitted from the old Mercury House to our newspaper office back in Malta will vouch for today’s Net value. Not only can we do all that, in full and perfect colour, but also from the comfort of hotel rooms and anywhere convenient for a wafer-thin laptop. In this ever-changing, ever-fascinating scenario, one thing has certainly not changed: creativity. You either have it or you don’t.

So back to our young man and his kind offer of easy links. Whatever the sources, their sheer vastness and depth, it is still down to how well or not you can write, about what and whom. To how effective and original the stuff that you present actually is. To how skilful and professional you can be in an otherwise turbulent electronic world that is both enticing and forbidding at the same time.

There is no going back, thankfully enough, but you will still always depend on your own creativity. Treasure it. No computer will ever give it to you. It will just help you communicating it. Cheers, then, lad, wherever you are.