You do not know me (or how blogs are misleading)

[greybeta]

You do not know me.

You do not who I am.

Nope, not you.

Or you here.

Or you there.

Or you over here.

Or you over there.

(although you do understand a part of me if you know what I just referenced)

Oh, you may feel like you know me. But very few people do know me. My high school inner circle knows me better than most people do because they spent time with me during those awkward junior high and high school years. My BSU buddies have seen the positive side of my pessimism. My former suitemates understand me as I’ve had to explain the appeal of anime to them, and in the process a bit of who I am. My scheming roommate is a brother to me now after having inhabited the same space for three plus years now. My dad, mom, and elder sister have the advantage of being with me through my formative years.

Combined, they would know who I am. But they’ve only seen bits and pieces of me, though some more than others. Some think I am a very somber and serious guy, while others think I am the funniest guy alive. Some think I have few talents at all, while others think I have too many talents to be counted. Some think I am a hardworking type A personality, while others think I am a lazy, spoiled brat. Some think that I am a natural leader, while others think I never call the shots. Some people think I am a pessimist, while others think I am a realist.

Only God knows who I am.

I had a recent conversation with Miss Hedgehog about the dangers of blogging (in truth, I probably am posting too much even if I am hyperattentive right now). First, you can never really know somebody just over a blog. That’s because people can “edit” their personalities to be whoever they want to be. It’s so deceptive! However, I felt obligated to point out that deception is inherent in any form of communication. In fact, I feel like people are more deceptive in real life. Think about poker for a rudimentary example.

Miss Hedgehog also believes that too many people use blogs as to escape the real world. Instead of facing up to their problems, they would rather sit six or seven hours a day on the Internet chatting with people who cannot hurt them, or at least people who they can choose to ignore when they feel inconvenienced. They would rather read pixels on a screen than go through the scary proposition of talking to someone face to face. These people vent on their blogs so they can feel like they accomplished something. You know they have at least taken their problems out in a marginally healthy fashion. However, just like medicine taken properly heals us, but medicine taken in excess hurts us, relying solely on a bunch of blogging (or any other form of Internet communication) to resolve one’s problems is a bad idea when done in excess.

God put other human beings on the earth for a reason.

I assume I see the best part of people in their blogs because of the natural inclination of editing yourself to be the best person you can be. I believe in the greater good in people, and on their blogs people are at their best, asking you to donate to worthy causes with passion. Yet, I am a naïve cynic, so I have to expect people’s worst. This is why I don’t mind people who complain about their medical situation or b*tch and moan about idiots. To me that’s just balancing who they are, as they do not want to give you the wrong impression. And really, I set my expectations so low that it’s hard to disappoint me.

I mean, if you disappoint me, you’re probably dead to be completely honest.

(No, I would not be the one who killed you)

Miss Hedgehog made me think about the danger of paper journals as well. A psych major once told me that people who keep paper journals are four times as less likely to get depression. However, keeping a journal does not make you impervious to depression. And I got thinking about all the dark and deep thoughts I put into my paper journal. So dark and deep that I can share it with only one other person, and that will be the person who will marry me (I plan to let her read my paper journals after we get engaged…though that’s sort of risky as she might call off the marriage after she learns what I truly think). I hardly let anyone ever know what I am truly thinking, even right now.

A lot of people told me they were shocked when they heard I had to leave school due to my depression. They were shocked, not just surprised. That’s because in talking with me you could not tell I was depressed. I made other people laugh even when I was crying inside. My overwhelming sense of duty allowed me to do things I did not care one iota about. I masterfully honed my ability to tell other people what they want to hear after having to tell my parents what they wanted to hear my entire life.

I still am excellent at doing that.

(Yet another thing I have to change about myself.)

And you know at what point you are really screwed? When you start writing poetry. Reading poetry to occupy your mind or understand your depression is fine. Poets have a way of touching your soul. But once you start writing poetry in an attempt to alleviate your depression, you know you are off the deep end. This is because I believe you are dangerously close to your own death. The best poets often got loads of inspiration right before their die. Now, in most cases, they had some sort of terminal disease that the crappy medical technology of the 19th century could not cure. But then we all know the cases of poets unexpectedly killing themselves. They probably surprised their friends and families, too.

I thank God for my senior AP English teacher, who made me despise poetry so much that I swore I would never write another poem after her awfully work-intensive class (we nicknamed her "The Slavedriver").

So in the end, I guess we just have to trust each other. When we see someone talk about something bothering them, we should probably email them to make sure everything is okay. For me, if you do not see my post for a while without warning, something is wrong. Blogging is a measure of how aware I am of the world. The less I blog, the more apathetic I am.

That’s not a good thing.

Perhaps, Miss Hedgehog said it best:
You must be accepting of others' faults, but not blind. True friendship comes from seeing all those dark, evil places, but loving the other person anyways.

Comments

[baronbrian.livejournal.com]

I know I self edit in my journal. There is no way you can know all about me from what I post. There are some things I just don't talk about.

I'd say reading someones journal is like meeting someone at a meeting or a party. You get to hear their funny stories, some of their interests and you get an idea of the person. But to really know them you have to sit and talk with them. Hang out. Really talk, not just throw words past each other.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

Indeed. I treat blogging as a way to learn about ideas, not exactly a way to know people. Meet people, yes, but knowing people is sort of hard with just words.

[moocowrich.livejournal.com]

You're absolutely right that we get a veiled look at other people through their blogs. We also get to learn something about them based on the sort of veil they want us to look through. It's a really interesting thought.

Everyday communication might have some amount of deception built into it, but I think poker is a poor example of what you mean. In poker, players have mutually accepted a sort of deception that is necessary for the game to be played. Without that agreed-upon deception, there would be no point.

I think the everyday deception you're looking for is more along the lines of the fact that we can never tell the whole story. The parts we leave out might be relevant to the person we're talking to. That's where communication gets muddy, I think. For example, I'm responding to the part of your post where you talked about all communcation being deceptive. But I'm not replying to the part of the entry that discusses poetry. I could respond to that part and tell you that when I was younger, I wrote awful depressed goth poems. But that part isn't something I really want to talk about, so I don't. Total communication is impossible, and the things we share certainly give a skewed picture as your post discusses. But I think that point holds with all forms of communication without the poker example.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

Yeah, poker was a pretty poor example but I couldn't think of anything better. And didn't we all write depressive poems at some point in our lives? ;)

[purplkat.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure about the causality of the whole paper journal thing. Has it been proven that the journals cause the depression? Or is it more likely that people who have tendancies towards depression also are the instrospective sorts of people who like to keep paper journals? I'd lean towards the latter. I started keeping a paper journal partly as a way to track my mood and help to give myself perspective. I tend towards a lot of black and white thinking, and a paper journal is good medicine to that, because I can go back and read previous entries and see that the world isn't as I imagined it. I stopped for a while, and I can't say that I was less depressed during that time.

Similarly, with poetry. I don't know much about poetry -- I've never had the knack for comprehending it fully or writing it. But I have frequently used my writing as a way of picking at my mind and trying to tease apart my feelings to get at the inner core. I think it's a form of poetry -- my characters struggles are often a metaphor for my own struggles. The first novel I ever wrote (which is horrible and I have long since eradicated every trace of it from the face of the earth!) was written while my parents were getting divorced, and featured an insane, absent mother, and an evil, young stepmother. (I was living with my father because my mother was being horrid and caustic to me, and my father had a girlfriend who, at the time, I would have nothing to do with.) The main character was detached and shying away from obligations that her parents, about whom she'd become disillusioned, were trying to place on her. At the time, I didn't see how closely this mirrored my situation, but looking back, I know what I was trying to say. And I think that the novel was very effective in helping me work through some of those feelings. After I finished it, I had an easier time opening up to my father's girlfriend, and I'm really glad that I did. I was never able to get close to my mother, but she was a lot more open and accepting and taught me a lot about womanhood.

Similarly, the novel I'm writing right now mirrors my unease at the idea of somehow stepping into the realm of adulthood. I'm 26, but even so, the idea of adult things like home ownership, parenthood, etc terrify me. Even when I keep the house spotless, I feel as though I'm "playing house". People assume I'm five or more years younger than I am.

Writing can be a wonderful way of confronting and toying with fears in a metaphoric, fantasy world where the demons are more likely to hurt your characters than you.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

I think it's just that people who write in paper journals at least get their thoughts out on paper, like you do.

And, yes, novels tend to reflect an author experiences. I remember having to pour over too many Dosteovsky bios to "understand" what Crime and Punishment was about.

People assume I'm five or more years younger than I am.
Perhaps that is because you look five or more years younger than you really are? ;)

Writing can be a wonderful way of confronting and toying with fears in a metaphoric, fantasy world where the demons are more likely to hurt your characters than you.
I may just have to use this a future installment of TU Cent Thoughts.

[wolflady26.livejournal.com]

The weird thing about blogging is not only that people don't know you, but that you don't know -how- people don't know you. The perception of you that others pick up from your words is nearly impossible to gauge.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

Wow, I didn't even think about that. That's probably why I'm always surprised when people don't think I am a pessimist...I edit too much of my negativity out of my writing (because few people want to read sad stories).

[stella-x3x3.livejournal.com]

But once you start writing poetry in an attempt to alleviate your depression, you know you are off the deep end.

When i write poetry i usually feel better..and less likely to want to slit my wrists...or come dangerously close to my own death.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

Well then, you're just an oddball, aren't you? ;)

[stella-x3x3.livejournal.com]

yep ^_^

[zoethe.livejournal.com]

Everyone edits. You edit in your journal, yes, but you also edit in your life. I am less of a geek at work than I am when I'm with my geek friends. I am less still at school. Everyone adjusts to their social situation - not to do so would be sociopathic.

That being said, the good friends I've made online have been consistently the same person when I meet them in real life. I think you can learn a lot about who a person is by reading their blogs. Some are clearly nuts, after all, or shallow, or very impressed with themselves. That generally tells you a lot about who the person really is. For the most part, peope aren't creating entire fictional versions of themselves - they write about their lives, and you get to know a lot of their backstory.

Now i have to go do homework. Bleah.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

So we're editing ourselves all the time...I never thought of it that way.

And I agree that we can tell a lot about people from their writing. We just have to be careful that we don't base our opinions of people solely on what they write.

Have fun on your homework, Mrs. Ferrett.

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

While I definitely edit how I present myself depending on the people I'm around, I think I present myself online pretty much the same way I behave in real life. The people I've first met online and then later on in person have all said they weren't taken by surprise.

I don't think everyone tries to show themselves in their best light in their journals. For some people, it seems they can't or won't talk about their more depressed or angry feelings in real life and save it for their anonymous blog where they don't have to worry about repercussions in real life.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

Well I think I am pretty much the same on my blog as I am in real life, except that I do not stutter or talk too fast on my blog thanks the the miracle of editing.

I tend to be more positive in my writing than I am in real life, for whatever reason.

[wldntulk2knwwho.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm... I, too, share your intense hatred for poetry. Sure it's ok to read every now and then, but you'll never catch me randomly writing poetry.

I've never really cared too much about the personality that my journal exudes. As I said when I first started blogging, I write for myself and no one else. I think that's why I have those long periods where I don't post. It's because I only like to post when I experience something that I want to remember.

I know you won't like to hear this D, but I'm not very good at writing to entertain others. Even if it's just telling about what happened during the day, if I didn't think it was too thrilling, I'm not likely to want to write about it. In the end, I guess what I get out of this is that people only write what they want to write. You can't get more truthful than that.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

Down with poetry!

Well PC, not everyone can be as entertaining as D2. ;)

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

This is very interesting, especially considering how closely it runs with what I was writing about in my recent entry. We have been on the same train of thought.

Even more amusing is that reading this made me think about a discussion that Anais Nin had about writing in her journals, the preoccupation with being a writer and a woman, and though writing the thoughts of a woman, she did it with the mind of the writer, always editing that which should not be told, that which did not lend to the story.

She also discusses the rearranging of information to make entries more coherent, something I have done as well. I write for catharsis, I write to chronicle progress and I write because I am a writer. And as a writer, I have an audience. And in their eyes, I see myself reflected, an image that draws me like Narcissus was drawn to the water's edge.

Hence my belief that it is important that one live on as many planes and media as possible. Online, offline, on canvas, in paint, in ink, etc.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

Hence my belief that it is important that one live on as many planes and media as possible. Online, offline, on canvas, in paint, in ink, etc.
If only I was beautiful enough to model... ;)

And as a writer, I have an audience. And in their eyes, I see myself reflected, an image that draws me like Narcissus was drawn to the water's edge.
Indeed, I keep a blog to improve my writing. I know I'm writing crappy when I don't get substantial comments. Which happens far too often. :(

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

I disagree that writing is crappy when you do not get comments. I used to think that way. But then I remembered the newsroom. Very few wrote me when I wrote anything meaningful or kick ass. They wrote when they experienced intense emotions--which means mostly when they disagreed or downright hated it.

Now, in my journal, I get very few comments compared to what I used to get. This is due mostly to the fact that I correspond privately with so many. But if comments are what you want, I know a sure-fire way to get them: close with a question. Make it bold so people can find it despite skimming.

We love to talk about ourselves.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

I disagree that writing is crappy when you do not get comments. I used to think that way. But then I remembered the newsroom. Very few wrote me when I wrote anything meaningful or kick ass. They wrote when they experienced intense emotions--which means mostly when they disagreed or downright hated it.
You know, I want to become the opinion editor at my college newspaper. I am going to have to write an emotionally charged article on gay marriage to test your theory about intense emotions...

But if comments are what you want, I know a sure-fire way to get them: close with a question. Make it bold so people can find it despite skimming.
*rubs hands together devilishly*

(And yes, we Narcissists do love talking about ourselves, don't we?)

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

Expand beyond the two moderate faces of the coin on the piece and enter some extremists. I mean serious fanatics. Add a sociologist's and political commentator's view on how this will affect schemes and you have a great basis for commentary. And don't be afraid to stand your ground, whatever your position. But research, research, research. The more educated you are about an issue, the easier it is to back it up.