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Jun. 10th, 2001 06:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
riot_nrrrdI do that a lot, don't I...
I write journal entries directed specifically for the people that I know will read them.
In some ways, I feel like I'm being superficial for doing such things. I mean, a journal is supposed to be for recording your innermost thoughts, right? You're not supposed to care what people have to say about you.
But at the same time, I never was able to keep journals in notebooks, because all I did in them was record thoughts that just echoed back at me later when I looked at them. (And looking at them was inevitably a depressing affair; I'm not sure if it was because I was in the throes of my adolescence at the time or whether I'm just cardinally self-conscious, but every time I looked back at them I felt horribly embarrassed that I could have possibly written something so trite.) I like having other people off of which to bounce my ideas, regardless of whether they're profound or just brief and capricious.
And I'm a writer. At least, I want to be. Maybe as a writer, I'm always seeking out that audience, no matter who or how. All those famous journals to which the general public now has access-- did those people really intend their journals to be private records of their feelings? I don't think so. I think they were written for posterity.
So, what's the problem with me writing for posterity?
At the same time, I do it in such an obvious, exhibitionistic manner. I don't necessarily feel like one of those journalists when I write in that manner; rather, I feel like someone on a talk show, showcasing my feelings for the fifteen minutes of attention it gets me.
I'm going to have to think about this one. What is my journal for, and why am I writing it? Am I doing it for the right or wrong reasons, or a combination of both? I don't want to get rid of my journal, and I do want to keep talking with the friends I've made here, but am I really offering something real through my writings, or am I just being cheaply exhibitionistic?
I write journal entries directed specifically for the people that I know will read them.
In some ways, I feel like I'm being superficial for doing such things. I mean, a journal is supposed to be for recording your innermost thoughts, right? You're not supposed to care what people have to say about you.
But at the same time, I never was able to keep journals in notebooks, because all I did in them was record thoughts that just echoed back at me later when I looked at them. (And looking at them was inevitably a depressing affair; I'm not sure if it was because I was in the throes of my adolescence at the time or whether I'm just cardinally self-conscious, but every time I looked back at them I felt horribly embarrassed that I could have possibly written something so trite.) I like having other people off of which to bounce my ideas, regardless of whether they're profound or just brief and capricious.
And I'm a writer. At least, I want to be. Maybe as a writer, I'm always seeking out that audience, no matter who or how. All those famous journals to which the general public now has access-- did those people really intend their journals to be private records of their feelings? I don't think so. I think they were written for posterity.
So, what's the problem with me writing for posterity?
At the same time, I do it in such an obvious, exhibitionistic manner. I don't necessarily feel like one of those journalists when I write in that manner; rather, I feel like someone on a talk show, showcasing my feelings for the fifteen minutes of attention it gets me.
I'm going to have to think about this one. What is my journal for, and why am I writing it? Am I doing it for the right or wrong reasons, or a combination of both? I don't want to get rid of my journal, and I do want to keep talking with the friends I've made here, but am I really offering something real through my writings, or am I just being cheaply exhibitionistic?
