Day 49

I was just thinking about our personal information in context to the public world. A blog, an update, a profile. These are all very public pieces of ourselves that we have relegated to the greater auspices of a shadowy other world. Something accessible to hundreds, thousands, etc for years now and years that exceed us. There are obviously many restrictions to this, your privacy “barriers”, choosing who can see it, etc. But in many very important ways it is infinitely much more public than a personal diary.

There’s plenty of information out there about very superficial and shallow information. I’m not here to diss on that but I am remarking on its existence. People package themselves with the information they say, even in personal blogs and its kind, the information that is eventually written is either vague, overblown, or edited.

There’s not a lot of demand out there to read about personal musings, and I completely understand. A lot of shit is out there and your personal attention span can only handle so much text (juxtaposed with many shiny and colorful pictures of course). People want their information to be directed because time is important. Posters also either must mute their own experiences because of a feared backlash against a reader who it may concern. Or they may overblow an incident/happening/issue to get a little sympathy/pity/attention.

I guess I’m just writing about it to serve as my personal commentary on blogging about life and in general, surrendering yourself to the world. After all that thought of putting what to say, what not to say, how to say it, and where to say it, are you still really being genuine? Is that person you are putting out there really you?

If not... why do it?

Or maybe the bigger question: Can we be happy characterizing ourselves in flat text, regardless of it depth or power?