The Bloggers' Dilemma
I know.. I know.. I'm guilty of not updating my blog for 3 weeks. So sue me! I guess I am now at a point that every blogger will reach sooner or later. I call that point "The Bloggers' Dilemma".
Now what exactly is "The Bloggers' Dilemma"(TBD)? It's the point where you feel that you don't want the whole world to know anything about you or even half the world to know something about you or even a quarter ... or even one person to know everything about you. And then u seriously start to question why you have a blog in the first place.
"Am I too egoistic? Too eccentric? Too egocentric? Why am I putting my thoughts and feelings online.. online where anyone with internet access can stumble onto my site?" You repeatedly ask yourself the same questions over and over again, knowing full well you can't come up with a satisfying answer to explain the irony of the situation.
Then you try to salvage the situation because you realise that somewhere out there, there may be someone whom you would rather not want viewing your deepest, darkest (or for some, shallowest) secrets. It could be that you are writing about that person. It could be that you are paranoid and fear that you may have a stalker fan. Whatever the case, you begin to limit the number of people that can view your entries. You start off by changing the security level of your journal from public to friends only (for non-lj journals, you start to block certain ips from viewing your entries), then slowly u remove friends from your friends' list so that they can't view your entries. The process may go on until you decide one fine day that it is pointless to continue your journal.
Either that, or you stop updating for a long time because you realise that the cost of updating and unknowingly hurting someone out there more than outweighs the benefits of updating if there are any at all to begin with. Regardless, you should still reach the point where you think it's pointless to continue your journal.
When you have reached the point there are only a few things you might do. You could REALLY end your journal, which is analogous to suicide in real life (killing off your existence on the net). You could move your journal to somewhere else and give the address to almost all the people you know again and thus be trapped in a vicious cycle of moving and informing. You could just pretend nothing has happened and try to be more careful when updating so that you would not include details which you think may cause complications in real life. But this could potentially build up more quickly to the next point of TBD (to be explained in a while). Or you could write an entry about wanting to close your journal and hope for comments to encourage you to carry on going (In real life, this is like going to a counsellor). Or better still you can write an entry cleverly disguised as a theory.
Anyway back to the point on not including certain details which may lead to the rapid build up to the next point of "The Bloggers' Dilemma". TBD is not unlike the lowest point of a sin curve aka sin270. Most of the time when we reach TBD, the worst part is over and we will recuperate and slowly our blogging lives will go back to normal. The only exception is for those who terminate their journals. But like the sin curve, our blogging lives will be subjected to the ups and downs inherent in the real world. The next point of TBD will be aggravated and triggered more quickly if we start to censor ourselves.
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I don't think I will get a nobel prize for this theory but that will be a nice addition to the collection I have on my imaginary shelf. Perhaps I have always been "fascinated" by all those newton's laws and what not. I started formulating my own laws when I was in JC like fries' first law of biology lectures which states that the probability of somebody falling asleep in Miss Loh's lecture, assuming they are not talking to their friends or eating sweets or drawing funny faces on their lecture notes or doing tutorials, that is assuming that they are paying 100% attention is 1.
Which is why I concluded that if sleeping pills can't help you sleep, go attend a Miss Loh's lecture (Okay okay, that's a teeny weeny bit mean but she really helped me sleep through the mitochondria and her menopause, oops i mean her lessons on menopause, but you get the picture cos you are a smart 7 year old who's internet-savvy).
Anyway, some day one of my theories will be recognised and I will be famous.. I can just smell it now.. Ooh wait a min.. that's the smell of the milo I left on my table a week ago.. Argh..
Now what exactly is "The Bloggers' Dilemma"(TBD)? It's the point where you feel that you don't want the whole world to know anything about you or even half the world to know something about you or even a quarter ... or even one person to know everything about you. And then u seriously start to question why you have a blog in the first place.
"Am I too egoistic? Too eccentric? Too egocentric? Why am I putting my thoughts and feelings online.. online where anyone with internet access can stumble onto my site?" You repeatedly ask yourself the same questions over and over again, knowing full well you can't come up with a satisfying answer to explain the irony of the situation.
Then you try to salvage the situation because you realise that somewhere out there, there may be someone whom you would rather not want viewing your deepest, darkest (or for some, shallowest) secrets. It could be that you are writing about that person. It could be that you are paranoid and fear that you may have a stalker fan. Whatever the case, you begin to limit the number of people that can view your entries. You start off by changing the security level of your journal from public to friends only (for non-lj journals, you start to block certain ips from viewing your entries), then slowly u remove friends from your friends' list so that they can't view your entries. The process may go on until you decide one fine day that it is pointless to continue your journal.
Either that, or you stop updating for a long time because you realise that the cost of updating and unknowingly hurting someone out there more than outweighs the benefits of updating if there are any at all to begin with. Regardless, you should still reach the point where you think it's pointless to continue your journal.
When you have reached the point there are only a few things you might do. You could REALLY end your journal, which is analogous to suicide in real life (killing off your existence on the net). You could move your journal to somewhere else and give the address to almost all the people you know again and thus be trapped in a vicious cycle of moving and informing. You could just pretend nothing has happened and try to be more careful when updating so that you would not include details which you think may cause complications in real life. But this could potentially build up more quickly to the next point of TBD (to be explained in a while). Or you could write an entry about wanting to close your journal and hope for comments to encourage you to carry on going (In real life, this is like going to a counsellor). Or better still you can write an entry cleverly disguised as a theory.
Anyway back to the point on not including certain details which may lead to the rapid build up to the next point of "The Bloggers' Dilemma". TBD is not unlike the lowest point of a sin curve aka sin270. Most of the time when we reach TBD, the worst part is over and we will recuperate and slowly our blogging lives will go back to normal. The only exception is for those who terminate their journals. But like the sin curve, our blogging lives will be subjected to the ups and downs inherent in the real world. The next point of TBD will be aggravated and triggered more quickly if we start to censor ourselves.
*****************
I don't think I will get a nobel prize for this theory but that will be a nice addition to the collection I have on my imaginary shelf. Perhaps I have always been "fascinated" by all those newton's laws and what not. I started formulating my own laws when I was in JC like fries' first law of biology lectures which states that the probability of somebody falling asleep in Miss Loh's lecture, assuming they are not talking to their friends or eating sweets or drawing funny faces on their lecture notes or doing tutorials, that is assuming that they are paying 100% attention is 1.
Which is why I concluded that if sleeping pills can't help you sleep, go attend a Miss Loh's lecture (Okay okay, that's a teeny weeny bit mean but she really helped me sleep through the mitochondria and her menopause, oops i mean her lessons on menopause, but you get the picture cos you are a smart 7 year old who's internet-savvy).
Anyway, some day one of my theories will be recognised and I will be famous.. I can just smell it now.. Ooh wait a min.. that's the smell of the milo I left on my table a week ago.. Argh..