Privately Public

You know, one of the things that crosses my mind a lot in regards to this wonderful digital wordspace I have going on here is the fact that it's public, open to any random nomad of the internet to stumble upon. And despite the fact that many of those 325 posts cover such riveting material as nerdy reviews, useless opinions, and absolutely inane documentation of mundane day-to-day life, a good portion of it... Is really personal stuff. Mind you, I put a lot of effort into stripping out identifying details and mixing in a few tablespoons of vague to keep things a wonderful shade of grey. But when all the fluff is boiled away, there are the remains of a chunk of me.

There are some things I put up here that are tough to get out, and tough to see articulated into words put up for the entire world to see. But that's why I do it. It's kinda like releasing it out into the wind. It goes from something inside to something that has sudden weightlessness and directionless freedom. Most likely it'll get blown around and land in a forest, or in the sea. Maybe it'll actually float to a town, where it'll set down on a street corner. This is where some random passer by will bend over, pick it up, and briefly glance at the contents on their way to dump it in the trashcan three feet away. Such is the nature of this 'internet' business, really. It's all noise buried on top of noise. And I don't have any illusions of grandeur - this, all this, is nothing more than a pixelated speck in the larger JPG of the world.

But it means a lot to me. It's semi-sensitive stuff. I'm glad that I've set it free and it's one less thing for me to carry around in my head, but there are bits that are still very much tied to me. So I generally don't advertise this thing to the people I know. I'm glad that the select few people that do know about this thing do. I trust their opinions, and I'm glad to share something that's important to me with them. I wouldn't hesitate to discuss any of this stuff with them.

What kinda bothers me though... Are the few people that aren't supposed to see this. You know, those people that you only kinda know. Practically acquaintances, with not much of a personal connection. That wonderful grey zone where they don't really know you well enough to understand what you've written, and you don't really know them well enough to feel comfortable talking about it. Yes, this is all up there for the public to sift through. So I don't have any right to complain. So if you're reading this, practically acquaintance person, I don't want to know about it. It's this emotional juxtaposition of taking a formal relationship and dumping in something intimate that has no right to naturally exist in this kind of circumstance. Internal dissonance and discomfort to the max, yo.

So the idea was presented to me that I should, perhaps, make this whole thing private. Therein lies the issue. Yes, it would get rid of this hesitation I'm having. But this whole thing is practically its own organic identity that I'm joined at the hip with. Sure, I have a say in things... But with the nature of the relationship between me and what/how I write here can't be tampered with. And that includes who sees it and how it's presented. It ain't for me to dictate. Just be. And so when the thought came to me that, maybe, I should be changing what I write about to remove those awkwardness-spawning personal connections... It immediately felt like the wrong thing to do. So screw that. This is what it is, and maybe I'll pay the price in some sort of social discomfort. But I think it'd be more than worth it.
-Cril

Mescalito - No Half Measures