The Public vs. Private Debate of 2002!
2002-04-09 � 1:38 p.m.

Here I am at werk again. Aside from some minor issues (my co-worker can't figure out how to reboot a computer and a station had the Windows directory deleted by an "enterprising" student), things seem to be holding together. So much so, in fact, that I'm bored already.

Which means it's the perfect opportunity to sit at my desk and do a bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with werk!

I've been meaning to discuss the issues Monsieur Anx wrote about the other day. Go here and read his original post.

His concerns and thoughts dovetail in an interesting way with my own vis-a-vis my entire Diaryland existence. I am unique, in all the diaries I read, in that no one from my "real life" reads my diary. None of my friends or co-workers, none of my family...no one. The only people I'm *sure* read my diary are people that I only know online anyway.

I keep the existence of my online diary a sekret from my day-to-day friends on purpose, though I have more than one reason, and the obvious reasons are not even the most important to me. Yes, I don't want them to know because sometimes I talk about them and it's good to be able to vent "into the air" without the danger of hurting anyone's feelings, but that is only a part of it.

A bigger part, for me, is creating a place of myself and *for* myself, separate from those persons out in my "real life." A place where I can be stupid, boring, bold, depressed, euphoric, *whatever*, in a way that might confuse or even, yes, hurt the feelings of those people. In that way, my diary, though "public" is also "private." And while I believe that *if* any of my "real life" acquaintances ever happened across my diary it is possible that they could figure out that it was me, I regard it as unlikely. The thrill of possible discovery is mildly titillating though. It is also unlikely that if I was "discovered" that anyone would even care.

I have discovered that this secrecy from the people in MeatLand is important to me becuase there are things that I've wanted to write here but haven't, because I don't know how the people that *do* read this diary would react to it. But as we'll see as this spewing continues, even that is a transitory feeling...as are all my feelings, no?

So now to try and answer Monsieur Anx's questions...

1. What is too private for you to write about in a public forum?

As with most things, the answer is "that depends." By and large, online diary-wise, this place is about *me* -- what *I'm* doing, how *I* feel, etc. Therefore, the only things that are too private for me to write about here are the things that make *me* squirm when I think about them. Do I edit myself here? Of course. But it is conditional, and all too likely to change from day to day or hour to hour.

2. Have you ever published something too private and regretted it?

Heh -- of course. I regretted venting frustrations here the other day that were vehement enough that VEX! felt compelled to email me and tell me to calm down. But other than making myself mildly embarrassed due to revealing things about myself that "make me squirm" or that are in themselves fleeting and circumstantial but that take on an aura of permanence due to being inscribed here (and thus become things that seem more important than they really are), I'm fairly comfortable with this forum and the content I've put forth in it. I just wish I sounded smarter.

3. Do you think you could be more risky with what you self-disclose, or is that kind of risk-taking too much of a slippery slope for you?

This is a good question, because *yes* I think I could be more risky with the things I reveal here by a large measure. I have thought about being more "open" but the idea scares me for two reasons: one, the very reasons I *should* do this are the ones that scare me -- I am not an open person, I hide behind layers, masks, words, jokes and an emotional aloofness that I have carefully cultivated for years and years as a means of protection and I'm afraid of what might become of the "me" that is me if I were to abandon that in any form; and two, I am afraid that even if the "me" that is me turned out to be an even more hideously malformed creature than you already see before you I still wouldn't be able to go back. Better, I think, to be "just open enough." I have other forums (like my physical, paper diary/journal) for letting the icky stuff leak out. After all, we don't want to scare the children.

4. What is public and what is private?

It would be easy to be glib and say that things are public when they are posted in a public forum and private when they are kept, well, private -- but that's avoiding the question. I guess that I agree with VEX! and the others who answered this question in that I would never reveal anything that had been revealed to me in confidence, nor would I ever say or do anything that would get someone arrested/disbarred, etc...though now that I think about it, I *have* said things here that could get people into some fairly large chunks of trouble if other people were to find out about it. Still, those few things are also things that were revealed to me in a public forum (i.e., I saw so-and-so canoodling in a crowded bar with someone who wasn't her boyfriend -- if you don't want people to know about that don't do it in a crowded bar, eh?).

Therefore this becomes a matter of judgement. See my asnwer to the first question, because even if I am writing about the bar canoodling scenario, I'm writing about how it made *me* feel like a tool, and helpless, and whatever. That's legitimate, I think. It isn't really about them, it's about me -- and I get to decide what's private or not for me as the mood strikes me. In regards to other people -- well, I'll write what I like, but chances are that as I write it I'll be thinking a lot more about if what I am revealing is appropriate to the situation or not. As I already mentioned, I have and do edit myself with other people in mind.

And that concerns me in another way: I don't want people to have to edit themselves because they know that *I* read their diary. I've felt myself compelled to say this to several people in the last six months, and I really mean it. I can see a situation where the diary/journal/blog thing would become more of a burden than a release, and I don't want to be the cause of that for anyone. I am perfectly comfortable being told to go away and stop reading. As far as I am concerned, that is a reasonable request.

I suppose that turns out to be an unsatisfactory answer. The problem is that there will never be consensus on this issue -- everyone will feel differently about the general and specific cases. All *I* can hope to do is behave in a way that I feel comfortable and confident about, and know that I will probably tread on *someone's* toes, somewhere along the way.

Which is *way* more than I have written here in a long time, and we wouldn't want to do anything different, would we? No -- different is bad. Television tells me so. So I'll leave it at that. Feel free to send me an email if you think I'm full of garbage.

Tah kidlets!

-t

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