(no subject)
Alex thinks that my journal hurts the business.
This is hard for me to swallow, even if it's true (I don't feel like I can accurately evaluate that). I really enjoy my diary and have been writing in it in one form or another since I moved to Bellingham. The thought of not writing in it makes me a little nauseous.
But he says that LiveJournal and our lives and the town and the shop are too intertwined to be frank anymore on the Internet. That no delineation really separates what I say from the business; they are now one and the same. This idea also makes me nauseous. It means that for my $300 a month, I get to forfeit my identity.
This kind of drives me a little crazy because he has all sorts of extremely strong opinions that he freely expresses - only not in "print", as it were.
His opinion means a lot to me so I've been mulling it over for a few days. I'm not angry or anything like that, I'm just having trouble with the concept and giving it a lot of thought.
I am a lot of things, and I say a lot of things, and sometimes they make people feel pretty mad. But whatever you think I am, you can not say that I am apathetic. To my mind, that's a bigger crime.
I don't get much satisfaction from platitudes and tripe. I'm not big on quiz results (I don't care whether you post them, they're very seldom something I find interesting personally.) I don't think I'm an important person or that I write important things, necessarily - I'm just a diarist, probably for the same reason any diarist keeps a diary. In some strange way, it just helps me in a strange, indescribable way, whether I am just recording keepsakes or trying to figure out my shit.
That's another thing I admire about psychepreserved, she sure is real. I think sometimes having an interactive relationship with her would ruin that. Being that I cannot comment in her journal, and she is unaware of mine is kind of a blessing. What she says I can take at face value, consider, and move on. Our lives and contexts are very separate. There are lots of things she says that shock me in various ways, but nothing she says makes me get mad, even when I very strongly disagree.
Maybe this means there is something to what Alex is saying - it's the distance. I am too close to you to tell you what I really think.
I suppose we all use this stupid interface for various things in various ways. For me, I get as much out as I put in. I feel dishonest reading your thoughts without contributing my own, like that would make me a social leech. I'm well aware that the enjoyment I get from reading your LiveJournals is contingent upon your willingness to contribute - not that I hold my own contribution in any high regard. I ramble. I generally refuse to "cut". I talk about things that are boring like my old lady hobbies of crocheting and genealogy. I don't care whether anyone leaves me a comment but I (mostly) feel glad when you do.
What I'm saying is, (for me - I am not judging anyone) I don't see the point in keeping this thing around just to lookyloo and meanwhile refrain from posting things that have actual meaning for me. Treehouse sleepovers and acute myelogenous leukemia and cooking for my family and clotheslines and the things I think about the city I love - it's all meaningful to me in a way that I don't expect or need you to understand.
Alex also sometimes laughs at me for rereading things that I wrote in the past and I do feel kind of embarrassed about that, but Wikipedia (he hates Wikipedia) has this to say about that:
Keeping a record of one's daily life provides the diarist with a tool with which to "time travel" to times gone by, providing a snapshot of past thoughts, feelings, and life events. In this case, the diary or journal can be used not only as a tool to fuel nostalgia, but also as a cure for nostalgia; if one feels nostalgic for certain times gone by, then he or she may use the journal to see his or her perspective of those times as they were being experienced, perhaps casting light upon negative features that the diarist had previously overlooked due to idealism.
So keeping a diary can keep you honest about the past, I guess.
But I also know what Alex would say about that: "That's fine, but why not keep it private?"
I don't know.
I have tried keeping a private diary at several points during my life. I didn't write in it.
On another note, who is this lady: http://diary.carolyn.org/ ?
This is hard for me to swallow, even if it's true (I don't feel like I can accurately evaluate that). I really enjoy my diary and have been writing in it in one form or another since I moved to Bellingham. The thought of not writing in it makes me a little nauseous.
But he says that LiveJournal and our lives and the town and the shop are too intertwined to be frank anymore on the Internet. That no delineation really separates what I say from the business; they are now one and the same. This idea also makes me nauseous. It means that for my $300 a month, I get to forfeit my identity.
This kind of drives me a little crazy because he has all sorts of extremely strong opinions that he freely expresses - only not in "print", as it were.
His opinion means a lot to me so I've been mulling it over for a few days. I'm not angry or anything like that, I'm just having trouble with the concept and giving it a lot of thought.
I am a lot of things, and I say a lot of things, and sometimes they make people feel pretty mad. But whatever you think I am, you can not say that I am apathetic. To my mind, that's a bigger crime.
I don't get much satisfaction from platitudes and tripe. I'm not big on quiz results (I don't care whether you post them, they're very seldom something I find interesting personally.) I don't think I'm an important person or that I write important things, necessarily - I'm just a diarist, probably for the same reason any diarist keeps a diary. In some strange way, it just helps me in a strange, indescribable way, whether I am just recording keepsakes or trying to figure out my shit.
That's another thing I admire about psychepreserved, she sure is real. I think sometimes having an interactive relationship with her would ruin that. Being that I cannot comment in her journal, and she is unaware of mine is kind of a blessing. What she says I can take at face value, consider, and move on. Our lives and contexts are very separate. There are lots of things she says that shock me in various ways, but nothing she says makes me get mad, even when I very strongly disagree.
Maybe this means there is something to what Alex is saying - it's the distance. I am too close to you to tell you what I really think.
I suppose we all use this stupid interface for various things in various ways. For me, I get as much out as I put in. I feel dishonest reading your thoughts without contributing my own, like that would make me a social leech. I'm well aware that the enjoyment I get from reading your LiveJournals is contingent upon your willingness to contribute - not that I hold my own contribution in any high regard. I ramble. I generally refuse to "cut". I talk about things that are boring like my old lady hobbies of crocheting and genealogy. I don't care whether anyone leaves me a comment but I (mostly) feel glad when you do.
What I'm saying is, (for me - I am not judging anyone) I don't see the point in keeping this thing around just to lookyloo and meanwhile refrain from posting things that have actual meaning for me. Treehouse sleepovers and acute myelogenous leukemia and cooking for my family and clotheslines and the things I think about the city I love - it's all meaningful to me in a way that I don't expect or need you to understand.
Alex also sometimes laughs at me for rereading things that I wrote in the past and I do feel kind of embarrassed about that, but Wikipedia (he hates Wikipedia) has this to say about that:
Keeping a record of one's daily life provides the diarist with a tool with which to "time travel" to times gone by, providing a snapshot of past thoughts, feelings, and life events. In this case, the diary or journal can be used not only as a tool to fuel nostalgia, but also as a cure for nostalgia; if one feels nostalgic for certain times gone by, then he or she may use the journal to see his or her perspective of those times as they were being experienced, perhaps casting light upon negative features that the diarist had previously overlooked due to idealism.
So keeping a diary can keep you honest about the past, I guess.
But I also know what Alex would say about that: "That's fine, but why not keep it private?"
I don't know.
I have tried keeping a private diary at several points during my life. I didn't write in it.
On another note, who is this lady: http://diary.carolyn.org/ ?