Wednesday, August 18, 2010

fretting n fuming

Ended the day and started the day on a grumbling mumbling note. Two things were the trigger for this, one irritation at the pathetic house management and two on the thin line between privacy and transperancy.

There is one thing that i get a constant bereating for- from friends and family. That my SEIVE- of what is personal and non shareable is vast. This does two things- one happily within minutes of meeting someone, I can share my biggest worries without a qualm and not bat an eyelid when the reverse happens and two- i fail to then appreciate sometimes how i tend to drag others lives into the realm of pulic eye by spontatenous enthusiasm - 'Blondey does it again' are often glaring reminders of foot in mouth and/or spontaneous action.

Take this blog- it  is personally public

The fact that this blog for example is in my head a space for inner reflection and when i sit down in front of this window, it is akin to hitting a pause button and assessing what is on, what is not and what amongst the various issues of the day deserves some attention.

But there is a thin line that i draw, a filteration where i choose to not write or share about certain incidents or events, things that i hold close to me to be not read by everyone. The murky line is the - membrane between selecting these issues

what is sharable for me, may be very personal for someone else and what is private for me may be not sacred for someone else. Bloggers mostly choose to not mention friends, family and maintain that veil of privacy that is important. Bloggers choose to write about events, international relationships or opinions not about daily life.

Guess it also highlights what and why we write in the first place.
This blog started in January. Reason, for me to journey and record in writing the events of the year to create a space where i could at the end visit a "live memory bank" the fact that others came by and read or commented was an add on that I was not duly worried about.

Prima Facie- i wrote for me, not for an audience, resulting in a failry private emotive journal being displayed online. The moot question then that is raised is - Why a blog? the format begs for public readership and invasion in an uncontrolled manner.. keep a diary a notebook anything... but why this?

have no clear answer to that either. maybe it is the vanity of each writer to be read, no matter what the content. Like that of a photographer, to have his images seen n critiqued or of a film maker to get people to see your work. 

At another level, it is due to the primitive instict - where i dont have very many secrets about my everyday life that i feel the need to sheild. But given that we are social animals and each of our incidents/thoughts/events involve others, how much of this is mine alone? Simply put, each time i choose to share a personal story I am by default publicsing someone elses life a wee bit too.  

and that is not what they signed up for when they came in to be a part of my life.

It is a very intruging thought though. What are your levels of "privacy". While some people know and are happy to share with office colleagues details of life, some friends clearly draw a line at work/social relationships.

Or with family, what  and how much your family knows about ur rumblings? You may be in the same space and yet know very little about what is actually going on in anyones minds and hearts. Are u willing to listen? Do u want to know? Do you want to share.. and there is no one way to determine this.

This is what hit me the first time i left a job. I came in every day and sat there. Gave precious years of my life to it. Yet when you leave your existence - at least the work and the physical reality of u is erased in moments. What is left is only - the relationships u struck. The rest fades. And in my world - relationships are forged by openness. not walls

this is not a defence or a justification. More a reflection of why this little white box is something i have come to feel the NEED for. Not a whim anymore.

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