Blogging has actually made me more private. I look at many of my earlier posts and realize that I used to be much more willing to share the private and more intimate moments of my life with the world at large, when I felt no one was reading or judging me. However, over time, I have learned that throwing all of that out there really is just not for me. The private and intimate things of my life now sit in a written journal in my apartment.
However, I have also found that I have become more private outside the world of blog. Many of the things I normally would have shared with my friends through a weekly email, now go unmentioned, as I do not send out the weekly emails anymore - what with my blogging and all. It is odd to me to think that these friends that normally would have known the status of my life no longer know it, and the reason that they don't know it is so that I can share the less intimate aspects of my life with the general public. However, I started this blog to be a journal - not to share my life with the general public. But the two go hand in hand. You cannot have one without the other - for better or worse.
Someone recently asked the following question to her readers: "What makes you keep on blogging?" As I read through the responses, I started really thinking about the question and I thought, Hell, I have no fucking idea. I blog out of habit. I blog because I have been doing it now for months and it's just become sort of a hobby. It gives me a reason to sit down and write about me and my life (but not all of my life). It gives me a chance to share random tidbits and thoughts with whomever feels like reading about them.
However, I see that my purpose in having a blog has morphed - mostly out of necessity. My blog is no longer a complete journal for me. It is now my forum, to spout off any meaningless drivel I happen to feel is worthy that particular day. It no longer is an effective means of keeping my friends informed on my life, as there are so many aspects of my life that I cannot share through blog. It truly is, more than anything, a hobby that I have kept out of habit - the same way I still catch myself looking at coins, on occasion, after having collected them during my childhood. It is a hobby and an exercise in writing. However, it does not exactly fulfill the goals that I initially began it for. For example, if I were to write an update on my Thanksgiving Holiday, so much would be omitted, as to completely obviate the entire reason to write about the holdiay in the first place.
However, I have also found that I have become more private outside the world of blog. Many of the things I normally would have shared with my friends through a weekly email, now go unmentioned, as I do not send out the weekly emails anymore - what with my blogging and all. It is odd to me to think that these friends that normally would have known the status of my life no longer know it, and the reason that they don't know it is so that I can share the less intimate aspects of my life with the general public. However, I started this blog to be a journal - not to share my life with the general public. But the two go hand in hand. You cannot have one without the other - for better or worse.
Someone recently asked the following question to her readers: "What makes you keep on blogging?" As I read through the responses, I started really thinking about the question and I thought, Hell, I have no fucking idea. I blog out of habit. I blog because I have been doing it now for months and it's just become sort of a hobby. It gives me a reason to sit down and write about me and my life (but not all of my life). It gives me a chance to share random tidbits and thoughts with whomever feels like reading about them.
However, I see that my purpose in having a blog has morphed - mostly out of necessity. My blog is no longer a complete journal for me. It is now my forum, to spout off any meaningless drivel I happen to feel is worthy that particular day. It no longer is an effective means of keeping my friends informed on my life, as there are so many aspects of my life that I cannot share through blog. It truly is, more than anything, a hobby that I have kept out of habit - the same way I still catch myself looking at coins, on occasion, after having collected them during my childhood. It is a hobby and an exercise in writing. However, it does not exactly fulfill the goals that I initially began it for. For example, if I were to write an update on my Thanksgiving Holiday, so much would be omitted, as to completely obviate the entire reason to write about the holdiay in the first place.
It seems to me, then, that you may wish to consider your reasons for self-censorship. When you don't feel that you can share all that you would share with everyone that you would share it with, it makes me wonder what the secret is, deep and dark and bad or whatever. You may well be the kind of person that needs a certain level of privacy (as Dr. Evil says, "The details of my life are quite inconsequential."); but then, if that's the case, why would you share more with your friends? thus making the details of your life non-private?
ReplyDeleteNot that I don't agree with the idea of having a blog be an e-column of sorts, a forum through which to blast your message into cyberspace, but it can also serve as a very accurate reflection of your life and times. How accurate that reflection is, is up to you. So, again, I wonder...why are you self-censoring? and thus pandering to the former style of blogging, rather than the latter?
Because I feel that my private life should be just that - private. Something shared with some of my friends, loved ones, journal, and licensed professionals.
ReplyDeletewell said my friend. Now you see why I barely write about the things in my life that truly concern me. Some things, are better left unwritten.
ReplyDeletei must agree with you ... my damn blog.
ReplyDeleteI wish I could be completely open and honest on my blog. There are too many people who read it that would be offended.
ReplyDeletedifferent blogging styles for everyone--i'm pretty personal in my blogs, but that worries me, too.
ReplyDeleteand thanks for linking my post :)
ReplyDeleteI don't think you should quit bloggin it up. I look forward to your posts.
ReplyDeleteMaybe a blog should be a forum for you to try out your new humor material.
ReplyDeleteWhy are you stopping? You took your real name and picture off, what else is there, you are not with the CIA, are you???
ReplyDeleteHe is with the CIA! I knew it!
ReplyDelete