Temptation
I was very tempted to write in one of the paper journals today but I know how that would turn out. It would involve me making a long, verbose list, taking up pages but producing very little content. I can't remember when, but at one point I wrote out a point blank list of something I had been meandering about in an old journal. List took a couple minutes tops. My meandering thought process in print over the same subject? Over ten pages and a few hours. It's procrastinating but I can get why I do it. It's my small attempt to establish order. That's why I want to meander in that journal.
Since the end of last year, I've been finishing off my paper journals. Ever since I was 15, I've written in Antioch journals (the company is now Trends International). In the last few years, those journals have gotten fewer and far between to find in Canada. I think the company has completely discontinued them in light of our digital age and that's a bit of a shame. Thankfully I've hoarded more than enough in the last few years. Some journals I never finish because something drives me to stop writing in that one before finding a home in another journal. Last year, I finished which ones I could. As for the ones that start and stop with blank pages in-between where I thought I would go back to finish them, I made neat lines to indicate a timeskip. I do not envy whoever would want to read my journals because there's never a year written in them and I have finished up journals this year that I wrote in high school about a decade ago. I just finished one yesterday and was sorely tempted to take up a journal that I had stopped using when I was in my librarian technician degree.
I want control over my life. The list-making is born of two things. One is the original idea from a novel I had to study in 4th grade, The Pinballs where one of the main characters made lists all the time. The other is online identity. I won't be the first or last to have multiple identities, though Ebontien/thefireisblack certainly is the longest I've ever held one. It wasn't supposed to be. It was supposed to be my hidden identity and stay in the background. In terms of superhero comics, Ebontien would be the uniform that I slip on after hours to prowl. Now, it is my default name on anywhere. Google Ebontien and it's more than likely to be my account, whether it's used, old or active. It's easier in this age with Tumblr, AO3 and other sites for constructing identity because now, changing your name is easy within 24 hours or less. In my notebook, I have at least 18 identities I've constructed since joining fandom, which was 13 years ago. That's 1.4 personas a year.
When I make a new identity, I get excited in picking out who this person is that I want to slip into for a time before going back to my own life. The more I stay when it's new and shiny, the less likely I want to leave until that identity is tarnished in someway in my eyes. I move on to the next identity, freeing that name to whoever else wants it next. At first I thought this was pure self-exploration. It is hiding. If I was to be straightforward, I'm not happy with myself. In someways your online identity as you get older is like your daemon in His Dark Materials trilogy; as you get older, your daemon shifts to a permanent form. I find myself using "Ebontien" because as much as I'm not happy with myself for periods, that is part of who I am. I took that identity on nearly a decade ago and it's still here. That is who formed with me.
I won't lie in saying I haven't tried to get rid of it like I try to get rid of parts of myself. The question I should think of is why am I not happy with myself? What can be done about it? There is where my brain refuses to answer. This is why I'm writing in here. This same entry would have taken me all day in a paper journal because of those tangents I want to distract myself with.
Since the end of last year, I've been finishing off my paper journals. Ever since I was 15, I've written in Antioch journals (the company is now Trends International). In the last few years, those journals have gotten fewer and far between to find in Canada. I think the company has completely discontinued them in light of our digital age and that's a bit of a shame. Thankfully I've hoarded more than enough in the last few years. Some journals I never finish because something drives me to stop writing in that one before finding a home in another journal. Last year, I finished which ones I could. As for the ones that start and stop with blank pages in-between where I thought I would go back to finish them, I made neat lines to indicate a timeskip. I do not envy whoever would want to read my journals because there's never a year written in them and I have finished up journals this year that I wrote in high school about a decade ago. I just finished one yesterday and was sorely tempted to take up a journal that I had stopped using when I was in my librarian technician degree.
I want control over my life. The list-making is born of two things. One is the original idea from a novel I had to study in 4th grade, The Pinballs where one of the main characters made lists all the time. The other is online identity. I won't be the first or last to have multiple identities, though Ebontien/thefireisblack certainly is the longest I've ever held one. It wasn't supposed to be. It was supposed to be my hidden identity and stay in the background. In terms of superhero comics, Ebontien would be the uniform that I slip on after hours to prowl. Now, it is my default name on anywhere. Google Ebontien and it's more than likely to be my account, whether it's used, old or active. It's easier in this age with Tumblr, AO3 and other sites for constructing identity because now, changing your name is easy within 24 hours or less. In my notebook, I have at least 18 identities I've constructed since joining fandom, which was 13 years ago. That's 1.4 personas a year.
When I make a new identity, I get excited in picking out who this person is that I want to slip into for a time before going back to my own life. The more I stay when it's new and shiny, the less likely I want to leave until that identity is tarnished in someway in my eyes. I move on to the next identity, freeing that name to whoever else wants it next. At first I thought this was pure self-exploration. It is hiding. If I was to be straightforward, I'm not happy with myself. In someways your online identity as you get older is like your daemon in His Dark Materials trilogy; as you get older, your daemon shifts to a permanent form. I find myself using "Ebontien" because as much as I'm not happy with myself for periods, that is part of who I am. I took that identity on nearly a decade ago and it's still here. That is who formed with me.
I won't lie in saying I haven't tried to get rid of it like I try to get rid of parts of myself. The question I should think of is why am I not happy with myself? What can be done about it? There is where my brain refuses to answer. This is why I'm writing in here. This same entry would have taken me all day in a paper journal because of those tangents I want to distract myself with.