Over the last week or so, as I've started to writing in much greater detail about my life, I've felt both exhilarated and worried. I've kept a private personal journal (off and on) since my early teens in which I have poured out my heart and processed my doubts and deep heart questions. I continue to value that private space -- and no one should think that my blog is exactly the same as my journal! But the problem with my journal writing is that it was sometimes terribly lazy. I'd write about the same thing over and over again; I make commitments that I soon forget and to which no one could hold me accountable -- since no one knew of my self-promises.
I've known for a while that there is really no substitute for writing for an external audience. Hence, over a year ago, I started a mailing list that I was planning to send to willing friends and family -- but not to the general public. The plan was to write something interesting every day. I chose the mailing list format to limit dissemination to select folks. I figure that I would get the advantages of writing for others while protecting my privacy. Before I launched the mailing list, I practiced to see how whether I could write something interesting every day. I ran out of steam during my practice run, and the mailing list was never launched.
Similar ambitions lie behind Hypotyposis, this weblog. Note, however, the differences: the blog is public available but I'm not sending ("pushing") the content out to my friends. I've told some friends about my blog but have made it clear that I don't expect them to read it. (Well, that comment is possibly disingenuous since if I had no expectations that they would read it, why would I even bring it up?) I am primarily writing this blog for myself, for me to "to work out (some of) [my] issues concerning Bach, the Web, life with God, politics, philosophy, art, justice, love, friendship, the church, books, etc." as the byline of the blog says. In contrast to my mailing list, I've been jazzed by the writing of this blog -- it has been exhilarating. I'm writing about matters of great significance to myself (if not to others). But since I'm writing to be read by others, I'm writing with the care and focus that are usually missing in my journaling.
Writing in the open has sparked serendipitous human connections, true gifts of grace. Two recent examples: First, my listing of my own life roles sparked Mark Sentell's list of life roles -- and a new connection across the country. In all the years since I first came across this concept, I never had opportunity to share a key conceptual framework with others, even among any of wonderful, close friends or family. (Isn't it odd that those closest to us should not know things so dear to us?) The list I wrote wasn't a secret; I would have gladly shared it with anyone who wanted to know. I suppose what was key is that the sharing had to happen in the right context. I needed to be able to set that context -- and there weren't too many opportunities to talk at this level with friends.)
The second example is Scot Hacker's pointing me to a relevant Salon piece on transportation in response to my post on biking. Scot was not a stranger to me since he and I both spoke on a panel on RSS on the Berkeley campus. I didn't know, however, that he was an avid bicyclist. I had read the Salon piece to which Scot had referred but had chosen not to link to it since it was not openly available to non-Salon subscribers. When I made that point to Scot, as well as despair at ever being able effect positive change in transportation reform, he made two points that impresed me: that we should be pointing to Salon since it was worth reading and deserved subscribers and that we should ride our bikes with relish and not despair. His email made my day, changed my mind, and lifted my spirit.
Let me now turn from the exhilaration of self-revealing blogging to the misgivings I've felt about my blogging. I've hinted about my concerns, most clearly with my post "Honest, open, and foolish?" but also in the context of posting my life roles and outlining a rough chronology of my life. My uneasiness has been the subject of two conversations I had yesterday and today -- last night with my friend Peter, who is a regular reader of my blog, and over lunch today with Chris. Peter was very surpised with how self-disclosing I've been recently. I shared with him my own doubts about what I've been doing but told him more about why I'm doing what I'm doing. (I have yet to explain some of those ideas here.) Chris asked me whether there was something specific that I'm worried about. Though I'm concerned about a lot of potential bad things that can come from blogging -- government data-mining/surveillance, cyber-stalking, rubbing some anonymous nut the wrong way, discrimination by some future job employer, giving plenty of information about myself to someone who wants to hurt me in some way ("knowledge is power") -- I've not been able to nail down any concrete worries. And though I've started to be more revealing of who I am, what I have disclosed is still rather tame and limited compared to a lot of other stuff out there.
So what to do? I don't want to spend too much time on "meta-blogging", blogging about blogging -- which is what I'm doing here right now. But I need to deal with the issue of what to say and how much to say before I forge ahead. I am looking for insight in this matter. It's probably a good time to look at some of the blogging books for wisdom. Google has already revealed a couple of interesting pointers [1, 2]. (Whenver I look at other blogs for discussion along these lines, I sense that I'm going through a common stage in blogging -- there must be a FAQ on this topic.)
While I sort out the question of what I am comfortable writing about, I'll probably blog on topics about which I feel less vulnerable. There's lot that I want to write about without putting myself out too far.
Posted by rdhyee at July 28, 2003 10:23 PM