footnote
When I read some blogs, I think “how nice, people are so honest and open.” I mean, you feel like you’ve known the person all your life when they write like that. Being one of those slightly privacy mad types myself, I cant tell you how much I appreciate this ability to be personal without feeling remotely embarrassed. It seems incredible! I could never just get up there and blah all I feel. They write things that I would probably hesitate to say in person to my close friends!
Oh – I didn’t define personal did I. Well, the stuff I write about here is personal you know. My politics. The way I think about issues. But its not personal in the conventional sense. My writing’s detached? Hang on – got the word I need. It is clinical.
When I started writing letters, I used to have great difficulty putting something personal down on paper for the world to see (that’s how it seemed to me). There was this awful sense of “oh no - now I’m committed to feeling this way!” In the beginning I used to chuck more letters in the dustbin than in the post box! (Now I’m much better… not only do I write… I write looong mails. And I guarantee to embarrass you by bursting into tears and telling you the most personal details of my life! :d)
I’ve wondered about that a lot. Is it better to just tell everyone everything – then you’d never have to worry about people poking and prying – or is it better to tell very few people very few things? (In some matters, talk I must, for otherwise I’d simply burst with excitement. Or anger. Or whatever!).
Anyway… for now at least…. if I start writing personal stuff on my blog – don’t pay any attention, just call the doctor asap: it’s a matter of serious salt overdose (Umm. Yeah. Personal secret #1 there… I get tipsy on salt!)
Oh – I didn’t define personal did I. Well, the stuff I write about here is personal you know. My politics. The way I think about issues. But its not personal in the conventional sense. My writing’s detached? Hang on – got the word I need. It is clinical.
When I started writing letters, I used to have great difficulty putting something personal down on paper for the world to see (that’s how it seemed to me). There was this awful sense of “oh no - now I’m committed to feeling this way!” In the beginning I used to chuck more letters in the dustbin than in the post box! (Now I’m much better… not only do I write… I write looong mails. And I guarantee to embarrass you by bursting into tears and telling you the most personal details of my life! :d)
I’ve wondered about that a lot. Is it better to just tell everyone everything – then you’d never have to worry about people poking and prying – or is it better to tell very few people very few things? (In some matters, talk I must, for otherwise I’d simply burst with excitement. Or anger. Or whatever!).
Anyway… for now at least…. if I start writing personal stuff on my blog – don’t pay any attention, just call the doctor asap: it’s a matter of serious salt overdose (Umm. Yeah. Personal secret #1 there… I get tipsy on salt!)
Labels: my life
scribbled by m. at 8:44 am
5 Comments:
It is never good for everybody to know everything about you. At the same time, if ppl dont know much about it obviously leads to misconceptions. Personally, not many people know the true me, they know different versions of me and even fewer know my principles and opinions. I prefer to keep it this way especially on a personal interaction level.
This is where blogs come into play. As long as the identity is know to few, we write about anything and everything. In essence its a window to the writers darkest and innermost thoughts. A voyeuristic pleasure that gives an insight into the idiosyncrasies of the writer. Neat.
Do you have to eat salt or just get a whiff of it to get tipsy?? :)
There is nothing that is totally personal in our lives-all of us are glad when we get our way and sad when we dont.Its true for people all over the world.
We all want to be admired and feel good about ourselves-only the way we try to achieve it differs.
And what we call as personal are things which we are afraid others may JUDGE us unfavourably with OR lower their opinion about us.
A simple search on the net - would reveal that purely "non-personal" blogs just don't last for long. Maybe an issue here, a really strong comment there - and then the feeling of oh, hell - what's in it for me... and the blog dies :)
As 'mystic' has aptly put - And what we call as personal are things which we are afraid others may JUDGE us unfavourably with OR lower their opinion about us.
So - if a thing bothers you, maybe you shouldnt put it up. At the end of the day, if anybody out there is going to decide that they know somebody just by a few scribbles - I am sure we have a problem there :)
There are things personal, and there are things more personal and there are things just acutely personal... you just cannot decide at which level you are reading the writer and that is enough cloak for online privacy even for the most honest blogger in the world.
Don't worry - we are nowhere near Google automated psycho-analysis (GAP analysis ;-) ) yet... and not for a long time to come.
I've often felt the same way for a few years now, and thus have deleted my earlier rather personal blog (which had been inactive for over a year, anyway), and started my current one, the aim of which is to fuel my interest in writing. I like writing, but have not worked on the interest too much.
But I also agree with Woodworm that there are several levels to privacy, so I think we're all decently safe... so it's just a matter of comfort.
interesting collection of ideas there... thanks people! :d
i suppose its the strangeness of the medium that complicates life a little! the anonymity on our blogs cuts both ways.
dunno if id classify only the negative as personal. there are so many that are central to our being which are simply amoral. so many ideas which are simply a sum of our experiences but which are so precious to us that we would hestitate to share them with all and sundry...
but yeah in the end, there could be so much left unsaid, we cant go by just the blog to know a person i guess :-)
Post a Comment
<< Home