here's a question for you...

[arguchik]

evacado responded to an earlier post in my journal, and it made me think of the following question. i decided to cut and paste it into a new entry, because i'm curious what people think about this. so here's my reply to her comment (in which she observes that the entry in question is very candid):

yeah...not sure how i feel about being so candid. sometimes i go back and cut things out, if having it "out there" in this forum makes me feel too vulnerable. how about you? how much do you censor the stuff you post, and do you have any specific criteria for deciding whether or not to post something?

so my answer to this question...i *do* censor myself to some extent. i try never to post anything that might embarrass someone else, especially if it will be obvious to other readers who that someone else is...so i obviously avoid using real names, or too much identifying detail. but i don't mind all that much if people read my own personal thoughts and feelings, foibles, weaknesses, quirks, etc. i think the *main* thing i worry about is being too self-indulgent, or engaging in too much solipsistic yet public navel-gazing (i think i do that sometimes, which is a little embarrassing to think about and to admit). but usually, writing about something personal is just part of my process of working through it or getting it out of my system, channeling it into a more useful direction. i've had conversations with my friend J (of the cross-country car ride in august) about this--he asks, "why blog? why not just write it in your private journal?" a legitimate question i don't have an easy answer for. maybe it *is* just narcissistic and self-indulgent, i don't know.

however, politically speaking, i think "we as a culture" (huge scare quotes on that gross ovesimplification!) are too invested in denying that we have feelings, that we experience turmoil, especially turmoil that sometimes threatens to overwhelm us. i feel the same way about expressing anger, sadness, love, or whatever--any strong emotion, really. i think it would be *better* if people felt more comfortable being open--i think it would help us to connect to each other, to feel empathy, and to become more aware of the ways in which our culture alienates people, and to start (or continue) questioning the assumption that strong emotion or difficulty indicates a personal weakness. it doesn't always, doesn't even *usually* indicate that, i'd argue--often it indicates a social, cultural, economic, or political problem. to quote a line from a rather bad movie that i nevertheless enjoyed very much (pump up the volume with christian slater), "feeling fucked up, in a fucked up time and place, does not mean that *you* are fucked up." so, this doesn't mean i think everyone should go around crying on the shoulders of strangers, or yelling at people unnecessarily, though i can envision situations in which both of those things might happen and might *need* to happen. for example, sometimes a good rant is exactly what's called for, and the only way a person can draw attention to injustice.

it's an interesting question. thoughts, anyone?

Comments

[the-kender.livejournal.com]

I really like that quote.

Well you know my journal -- so I don't really censor myself per se... at least not a lot. I censor myself in the fact that I'm selective about giving details that no one would understand. Most people who read my LJ, as far as I know, know the minimum about me to understand some details (Rachel, CWU, etc).

I like having all of this out in the open as a venue for people to get to know more about what I'm doing and how I'm doing. Whenever I spend time in someone's presence who I haven't seen in awhile, I ask questions and they don't. Most people ask a minimum of questions and if I don't choose to volunteer my life in a hardbound book, they don't get to know anything and I don't get to say anything. So this is my protest to people not asking me about how I'm doing. Plus its convenient when family reads it so I don't have to say, "Yeah, doing good" or "School is getting me down" or "My girlfriend cheated on me" since they already know.

I have no problem with sharing my thoughts because I do most of my contemplation while in the midst of conversation. So this is just...a worldwide conversation, right? I enjoy asking questions and getting feedback, I love it when someone shares a tidbit about their life because they could relate to my thought patterns or history. I get a kick out of that.

Why have an LJ instead of a private journal? I do it because I'm a social creature and I can't have an active social life all the time that visits every circle that I'm involved with -- I'd be broke and tired. So I make up for that with this LJ. I can be serious, I can be goofy, I can be academic, I can be political and there will always be someone who will say something to me, online or off, because of it.

Of course it's narcissitic. Anytime you expose yourself to public examination, you're doing it because you're confident that a particular aspect of yourself will hold up to scrutiny -- its easier to take someone else's words as well... since we are our own worst critic, why not take a less harsh taskmaster like the public?

[crash66.livejournal.com]

one of the things about livejournals that i like is that people are so candid. It's nice for people to be able to just put things out on the table that they are thinking about.

I do censor myself quite a bit in that i don't talk about my dating life much at all. I feel it's between me and the person or persons.

and as for the navel gazing, we all like looking at your navel. ;)

[costco77.livejournal.com]

I originally started my LJ to get my scrambled thoughts down on a journal during the time of my father's death. I thought it might be a good way to remember how I was feeling, and the circumstances surrounding the events. It was a good way to keep intouch with people in the west while I was out east. It's always been a good way for me to remember things I didn't want to forget. As for censoring, I censor locations a bit and names a bit, but the most important thing is that the little I put down jogs my memory.

These days, it's a good place for me to hang my emotions, thougths, and plans for my friends to see. It's like a private journal with input from your friends.