Real life and otherwise
I can't say that I have much blogging stamina. In fact, it's been almost a month and a half since I last wrote here. In the meantime I've been reading blogs quite regularly, but still can't imagine having time to come up with something that's polished enough to be 'publishable' on a regular basis. Having given up, I've now fallen back on 'decent' rather than 'polished'. With 'decent' meaning that I've proof-read for typos...
When I write on Livejournal, I can make sure that only the people on my friends list can see the dross. Sometimes I complain about work, although I'm making more of an effort not to do this. Sometimes I spill the sordid details of my life, or of my thoughts - not really things that I'd like to share with all & sundry, but often things that do beg some sort of external response. So, while it might be less suitable for public consumption, it's also a great deal more personal and intimate than anything I'd write here. I've met some wonderful people through Livejournal; one really good friend, several objects of great admiration, a few casual friends of a very pleasant kind, and all of them are definitely the sort of people that I like to spend time with. I'm expecting a visit from one of my very favourite Livejournal friends in May - somebody I've never met before.
One of the things that first surprised me was that I might not like somebody whose online presence I adore. It was a matter of hand gestures, of how we interacted, and of how we just wouldn't have ever started to get to know each other in real life because each of us found the other just a little bit off-putting. Over time we've come to like each other's company a great deal more but mostly, I think, because we know that there's something special - something that we already know that we like - lurking beneath the facade of personality.
So I suppose that, for me, blogging is the equivalent of personality. Something put on for the benefit of others, or for one's own benefit in seeing their reaction to it. Whereas writing more privately is always going to feel more like an expression of character: something less guarded and 'static' if you are to believe Yeats' contrasting with 'fluid personality'.
When I write on Livejournal, I can make sure that only the people on my friends list can see the dross. Sometimes I complain about work, although I'm making more of an effort not to do this. Sometimes I spill the sordid details of my life, or of my thoughts - not really things that I'd like to share with all & sundry, but often things that do beg some sort of external response. So, while it might be less suitable for public consumption, it's also a great deal more personal and intimate than anything I'd write here. I've met some wonderful people through Livejournal; one really good friend, several objects of great admiration, a few casual friends of a very pleasant kind, and all of them are definitely the sort of people that I like to spend time with. I'm expecting a visit from one of my very favourite Livejournal friends in May - somebody I've never met before.
One of the things that first surprised me was that I might not like somebody whose online presence I adore. It was a matter of hand gestures, of how we interacted, and of how we just wouldn't have ever started to get to know each other in real life because each of us found the other just a little bit off-putting. Over time we've come to like each other's company a great deal more but mostly, I think, because we know that there's something special - something that we already know that we like - lurking beneath the facade of personality.
So I suppose that, for me, blogging is the equivalent of personality. Something put on for the benefit of others, or for one's own benefit in seeing their reaction to it. Whereas writing more privately is always going to feel more like an expression of character: something less guarded and 'static' if you are to believe Yeats' contrasting with 'fluid personality'.
posted by feroce at 4/03/2005 11:56:00 AM
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