Censorship at its finest...
A few years ago i lost a friend over what i wrote in an online journal. It was the words that i wrote that ended the friendship (or whatever it was). i can accept the blame. It really did begin with me, and was in essence my fault. It was my choice to say something that she found to be offensive. To be fair, i didn't know it would offend her and the comment was not about her nor was it referring to anyone she knew nor was it insulting any one specific individual nor was it bigoted in anyway- hell, i may as well come out and say it here- i said that the people in my math class were dumb. i know it seeems like a rather casual thing to say, but it ended our friendship. Seriously. Sometimes i think back on it and wonder if i would still have said it if i had known how she would react. It was an honest statement that i still feel to be true about the class. It also honestly represented my thoughts and reflections on my life experiences. But, should i have said? And worse... would i still have said it if i'd known it would end the friendship? There isn't really an answer to the second question, but to the first the answer is simple. Yes. i should have said it. It was what i was thinking, it was how i was feeling, it was what i observed. i wrote about it in my journal. The tricky part is that it was an open journal... it was free to be read. i wrote it where i knew that it could offend someone. Who knows if someone from my math class was reading my journal? i think it all comes down to why we write here. For me this is, at its core, a journal. It is a journal that other people choose to read, but also one in which i am aware that other people choose to read it. i guess the bottom line is this: Despite the fact that others read this, i still consider this to be a journal. i will not censor myself in own journal. That doesn't mean that i want to offend the people who read this. It just means that when i write something here my first thought is about how badly i either want or need to write something. Several thoughts later i remember that other people will read it. Thankfully, i do usually remember that others read this and set things to private when it would be offensive or unprofessional. But, not always. Sometimes i forget. Sometimes i'm so angry i just want to say something openly. But does that make it right? i don't think so. There are things that you can and can not say in the open forum- even in an open journal. It's not something we always remember, but it's something we need to keep in mind. Does that make me a hypocrate? Yes. Am i okay with that? Yeah. i still don't think we need to censor ourselves, we just need to be aware of where we are expressing what we are expressing. That's why i have about 6 online journals and 2 in the physical world.
*the following definitions are from dictionary.com*
jour·nal
1. a daily record, as of occurrences, experiences, or observations
di·a·ry
1. a daily record, usually private, esp. of the writer's own experiences, observations, feelings, attitudes, etc.
blog
n. A weblog.
web·log
n. A website that displays in chronological order the postings by one or more individuals and usually has links to comments on specific postings.
In case you are interested, here is the diary entry i wrote after everything that happened with my comment about the math class. i don't still agree with everything i said then, but we all change over time. And, as previously noted, i'm a hypocrate. ;D Anywho, i've found that it's
"my innermost monolouge 2/25/2004
A diary is a place where the writer can express their personal thoughts on life. Is it not? That is the point of why we all do this. We either want to write what we observe or how we feel or what we've learned. Sometimes it is expressed in fiction or poetry, or in essay or even in a literal comentary on the day's events. But, the essence of a diary is to take something inner and to translate it externally, through the written word. I'm not a wonderful person. And, I'll be the first to admit that I can be a bitch. But, I've always accepted my diary as, at the very least, the one place where I can be entirley truthful without the buffer of polite conversation and political correct-ness. That's not to say that I strive to offend. This is an open diary, and that means it is accessable to the world. For the most part, if I think something is going to be offensive to the reader I usually choose not to write it here. But, because of the nature of diary writing, I don't have to. This is my inner monolouge written out. This is how I see life. Me. Maybe it's not always PC. Sometimes it's not even rational or very nice. But that is my perogative. When I read other diaries, I'll sometimes offer advice, but I try to never make a moral judgement of what the person has said. I may disagree with something, but I would never tell the peron they were wrong to have thought it. It's not my rite to do so. People can write whatever they want in their diaries. I don't have to read it Really, this all comes down to personal freedoms. No one can censor what we think. And, as a diary is meant to be an outlet for thoughts, no one really has the rite to censor those thoughts expressed. I could keep going on ths tangent, but I think I've effectively made my point. This site is about writing a diary. Feel free to write what you want. Express yourself. I know that I will."
Edit: i'm taking out the space between the two paragraphs from my old entry from '04 because i think it confused some people. The conclusion to this entry is about my hypocracy.... just to be clear.
*the following definitions are from dictionary.com*
jour·nal
1. a daily record, as of occurrences, experiences, or observations
di·a·ry
1. a daily record, usually private, esp. of the writer's own experiences, observations, feelings, attitudes, etc.
blog
n. A weblog.
web·log
n. A website that displays in chronological order the postings by one or more individuals and usually has links to comments on specific postings.
In case you are interested, here is the diary entry i wrote after everything that happened with my comment about the math class. i don't still agree with everything i said then, but we all change over time. And, as previously noted, i'm a hypocrate. ;D Anywho, i've found that it's
"my innermost monolouge 2/25/2004
A diary is a place where the writer can express their personal thoughts on life. Is it not? That is the point of why we all do this. We either want to write what we observe or how we feel or what we've learned. Sometimes it is expressed in fiction or poetry, or in essay or even in a literal comentary on the day's events. But, the essence of a diary is to take something inner and to translate it externally, through the written word. I'm not a wonderful person. And, I'll be the first to admit that I can be a bitch. But, I've always accepted my diary as, at the very least, the one place where I can be entirley truthful without the buffer of polite conversation and political correct-ness. That's not to say that I strive to offend. This is an open diary, and that means it is accessable to the world. For the most part, if I think something is going to be offensive to the reader I usually choose not to write it here. But, because of the nature of diary writing, I don't have to. This is my inner monolouge written out. This is how I see life. Me. Maybe it's not always PC. Sometimes it's not even rational or very nice. But that is my perogative. When I read other diaries, I'll sometimes offer advice, but I try to never make a moral judgement of what the person has said. I may disagree with something, but I would never tell the peron they were wrong to have thought it. It's not my rite to do so. People can write whatever they want in their diaries. I don't have to read it Really, this all comes down to personal freedoms. No one can censor what we think. And, as a diary is meant to be an outlet for thoughts, no one really has the rite to censor those thoughts expressed. I could keep going on ths tangent, but I think I've effectively made my point. This site is about writing a diary. Feel free to write what you want. Express yourself. I know that I will."
Edit: i'm taking out the space between the two paragraphs from my old entry from '04 because i think it confused some people. The conclusion to this entry is about my hypocracy.... just to be clear.