Reflexivity: A post about posts, and the significance of this post in particular.
First post. Deleted my old account because I didn't use it, was out of touch with my friends anyway. Figured they didn't update.
In contact again with a friend, best friend in fact. Still updates her livejournal, apparently. Suggested I read hers, also maybe make one myself.
So here we are, or rather: here I am. I don't presume a we, since this thing may not be read much, if at all.
Not that I care. The benefits I gain from posting here would primarily be in the reflexivity offered in externalizing thoughts and experiences. I'm not a very reflective person, much of the time. Even when I'm thinking, it's all very immanent. I don't often step outside myself and compared to most people not much catches my eye in day-to-day life. For this reason I've never had much material for keeping a journal or diary. My experience of the day largely just happens. This isn't to say that I don't make decisions, or try to act consiensciously: neither of those require the sort of movement I'm talking about. One can be immanently thoughtful, careful, consienscious and the like (though perhaps one is less thoughtful, careful or consienscious than one could be). The key difference is that most things just occur in the flux. Without refle(x/ct)ion, they just don't get 'logged' so to speak and so there is little content for retrospection. Though that has changed lately, which is probably why I'm actually considering posting here.
Actually keeping a journal probably, ironically, encourages a way of engaging with one's experience in exactly that way, even if only retrospectively. As a result, if I post here it will primarily be to externalize, reify, reflect, record and so forth. In short, to make me more refle(x/ct)ive in a non-immanent way. For that purpose I don't need a reader, except perhaps insofar as I myself am committing a certain act of reading as I write. A reading of my day, or week or my thoughts.
Of course, the irony in all of this is that I'm addressing a reader which I don't expect or need about the fact that I neither expect nor need them.
EDIT: Also, I will edit my posts. A lot. I've already edited this one about four times.
EDIT: Fifth edit.
In contact again with a friend, best friend in fact. Still updates her livejournal, apparently. Suggested I read hers, also maybe make one myself.
So here we are, or rather: here I am. I don't presume a we, since this thing may not be read much, if at all.
Not that I care. The benefits I gain from posting here would primarily be in the reflexivity offered in externalizing thoughts and experiences. I'm not a very reflective person, much of the time. Even when I'm thinking, it's all very immanent. I don't often step outside myself and compared to most people not much catches my eye in day-to-day life. For this reason I've never had much material for keeping a journal or diary. My experience of the day largely just happens. This isn't to say that I don't make decisions, or try to act consiensciously: neither of those require the sort of movement I'm talking about. One can be immanently thoughtful, careful, consienscious and the like (though perhaps one is less thoughtful, careful or consienscious than one could be). The key difference is that most things just occur in the flux. Without refle(x/ct)ion, they just don't get 'logged' so to speak and so there is little content for retrospection. Though that has changed lately, which is probably why I'm actually considering posting here.
Actually keeping a journal probably, ironically, encourages a way of engaging with one's experience in exactly that way, even if only retrospectively. As a result, if I post here it will primarily be to externalize, reify, reflect, record and so forth. In short, to make me more refle(x/ct)ive in a non-immanent way. For that purpose I don't need a reader, except perhaps insofar as I myself am committing a certain act of reading as I write. A reading of my day, or week or my thoughts.
Of course, the irony in all of this is that I'm addressing a reader which I don't expect or need about the fact that I neither expect nor need them.
EDIT: Also, I will edit my posts. A lot. I've already edited this one about four times.
EDIT: Fifth edit.