This has been sitting in my queue of unfinished entries for a while, but I’ve never quite had the motivation to reassemble all the thoughts involved. Some events in recent days have brought me back to this particular thought process. It’s a bit wordy, and possibly a bit disorganized, but it’s not like I’m being graded so that’s that. I’ve taken notice of late that I haven’t touched this blog in months. Since March 11th, to be exact. Not for lack of things to say, because plenty of things have happened in that time that would have been well worth writing about.
To cut this particular rant a bit shorter than it would otherwise be, the reason I’ve been feeling so avoidant of my own journal is the fact that there is someone who would love to take the opportunity to tell me that I shouldn’t write about my own life online. I should keep the details private and quiet and out of public view, primarily because they feel they’ve been written about here. I do, from time to time, make mention of the other people present in my life. There are a few of them, as there are in most peoples’ lives. I have friends and companions who I know would not mind being written about, and those I know who would, and I refer to them accordingly. It is my responsibility to maintain the anonymity of the people in the stories I choose to share with the world, and I take it seriously.
As a blogger, and a person with an invested interest in communication and technology, I’ve been reading about laws regarding written documents online – blogging in particular. I’ve been putting a lot of thought into blogging lately, and the consequence and ramifications that come with sharing my thoughts with the world. I have been blogging since around the time I was in ninth grade, which would put me at about fourteen or fifteen years old. That’s about seven years of chronicling my life for all the world to see. It’s interesting to look back at these entries now; most of them are no longer available online, but I still have my own personal record of them backed up for my own personal amusement. Regardless; this has been a part of my life for a significant period, when you pause to consider that I’m only twenty-two years old. That’s roughly one-third of my entire life. It amounts to no small volume, but that does tend to be the nature of life.
There are a lot of blogs out there, on just about any topic you can dream up. I read a fair few myself. Some are personal, some are on a specific subject, some are somewhere in between. When I started writing my own blog, I didn’t have a particular goal in mind. My objective was to build some type of platform for my own free expression. If I had something to say, that was the place to do it. While it’s gone through several evolutions, it remains primarily the same. Perhaps my subject matter has changed some, but that’s to be expected with the amount of time that’s passed and the number of years I’ve been working at this.
I’ve often questioned the reality of posting my journal online. Is this really something I want my name attached to? What will people think of me? But then again, if I’ve got something to say, why shouldn’t I exercise my right? I’ve often thought about tightening security on my blog, and putting a bit more limitation on what I write about, but quite honestly, if I’m going to censor myself to that end what’s the point in doing this at all?
So, what’s my deal? Well, getting back to the idea of subject matter, I find personal blogs to be one of my favorite types of blog to read. It’s interesting to learn about different ways that people live, what their values and personalities are, what they hold dear, and what they do with their lives. If you consider it from a literary standpoint, it’s something akin to reading historical memoirs, though the people tend to be as ordinary as myself and their history is written one day at a time. It’s a kind of hybrid between an autobiography, a newspaper opinion column, an editor’s note in your favorite magazine, and a (sometimes heated) public debate. It is one of my ways of learning about the world and better understanding my fellow human beings, and who better to tell the tale than the person who is living the experience?
To this end, this also further defines my own purpose in blogging. Keeping in mind my original goal of building a platform for personal expression and writing, along with the expanse of time I’ve covered here, I feel that I’ve collected a semi-complete personal history of myself from 2001 to the present day. I do it because I want to remember. I do it because I want to share with my friends and with people who might yet become my friends someday down the road. I do it to ask questions and provoke something in myself. I do it because it’s interesting, and because it’s fun. I do it so I have a reason to write something. I do it so I have a reason to code something. I do it because I can.
So am I wrong for wanting to share the joy and the passion with which I live each day of my life? For writing about the things that inspire me, move me to tears, make me think, or simply make me laugh? For putting down my notes, thoughts, and ideas in a place where other people happen to be able to see them? If these actions are so criminal, then I can see why this person has convicted me without trial. When things are written down, they tend to bear a certain kind of truth. Even when those words are fictional, they project reality just closely and briefly enough that we latch on and give in to them for a moment; hence the popularity of many books. When I write down my thoughts and stories about my life, I am encapsulating the truth of what I’ve felt and seen and thought. I may not be anyone’s hero or anyone particularly important in history, but in a way I am writing down my autobiography. What matters to me is that I am writing down what is most significant to myself, and that just happens to be in a place that my friends (and a few other people) can view at their leisure. I could fictionalize, but what would be the point? In any case, I think the person who feels the way he or she happens to feel about me and my blog is simply frightened. Afraid to admit the truth, because to admit the truth would be to admit that I’m right. I’m twenty-two years old, haven’t yet graduated college, haven’t yet “lived,” or seen the real world or really done anything significant, so I can’t possibly be right about something, and yet I am. And for that, I pity this person. That’s right, I feel bad for you.
But in the end, I just can’t give up on this simply because you’re afraid of something. My being right about something doesn’t make you any less human, and I suppose it’s okay to be angry with me. But I refuse to go back in my box and hide as you do, simply because it would please you to watch me feel your own fear so you can tell yourself you were right all along. I’m done pretending that I don’t blog. If this hasn’t made sense to you, that’s okay, it probably wasn’t about you, anyway. This is my journal, and I will use it as I always have.
