Blog Honesty
So this is my first attempt at keeping a blog. In the week that I've been doing it, I've had a chance to mull a number of issues. Firstly, I'm amazed by the openness and candor of bloggers like Stephanie Klein (who, along with Chris DiClerico, have been a big influence on my own humble scratchings...uh, electronic scratchings, that is).
Stephanie uses her blog to bare her soul to the world, with seemingly no vanity or diffidence. I quite admire her for it but I don't think I'd be up for it myself. For many reasons:
1. She's an attractive woman and, as un-pc as it sounds, she gets cut a lot more slack. When was the last time you got a parking ticket, Stephanie?
2. She seems genuinely at peace with herself, at least as far as accepting her own impact and presence. I'm far too self-conscious for that and would worry, endlessly, what people thought of me if I said this or that. Not to say that I lie but I do keep some of my, shall we say, more controversial opinions to myself because some people might find them in turn, offensive, silly, narrow-minded, nutty, nerdy, flawed and kooky. I'll voice them to people that I know but I hesitate to lay them out, context free, on an open forum like this one. Even if it's my own open forum.
3. I'm Egyptian. A liberal one, true, but still Egyptian. If you thought Catholic guilt was bad, come over to my house circa 1984 and walk for twenty seconds in my shoes. I feel ashamed when I open myself up and expose myself, warts and all, to people. I also have friends who are a mixture of liberal and conservative and I treasure and respect them all equally and, quite frankly, I'm afraid of offending them. In time, I probably will, but it's always a consideration when I write in my blog.
4. Can I just say that the amount of pleasure I just got from saying "my blog" in the last point is disturbingly close to the amount off pleasure I got from introducing my first girlfriend, Maha, to the world as "my girlfriend".
5. I know, I'm a total tool.
6. I feel it puts you at a disadvantage when you meet new people who didn't have to do much to research you. They know your ins and outs, your weaknesses and fake strengths, your peaks and valleys. Do I really want to give a stranger this much power over me? Call me paranoid but it makes me uncomfortable. How do you do it, Stephanie? Doesn't it bother you, in the midst of a first date, that a man might be telling you what you want to hear verbatim from the June 19th entry?
7. Maybe with time I'll be more open. It's a process...everything is. You assure me, I learn to open up, you forsake me and I feel exposed and wounded. I can dig that.
Chris is a blogger after my own heart. Doesn't say anything too serious or deep (though he sometimes says controversial things) and doesn't expose himself too much. But even he has a degree of brazen honesty that I respect. He makes his feelings known. He says it.
I'm afraid of offending people. The irony is that people who know me think I live off saying the controversial thing to make an impression. I do (I have) but it's never a controversial thing closely related to ME.
Stephanie uses her blog to bare her soul to the world, with seemingly no vanity or diffidence. I quite admire her for it but I don't think I'd be up for it myself. For many reasons:
1. She's an attractive woman and, as un-pc as it sounds, she gets cut a lot more slack. When was the last time you got a parking ticket, Stephanie?
2. She seems genuinely at peace with herself, at least as far as accepting her own impact and presence. I'm far too self-conscious for that and would worry, endlessly, what people thought of me if I said this or that. Not to say that I lie but I do keep some of my, shall we say, more controversial opinions to myself because some people might find them in turn, offensive, silly, narrow-minded, nutty, nerdy, flawed and kooky. I'll voice them to people that I know but I hesitate to lay them out, context free, on an open forum like this one. Even if it's my own open forum.
3. I'm Egyptian. A liberal one, true, but still Egyptian. If you thought Catholic guilt was bad, come over to my house circa 1984 and walk for twenty seconds in my shoes. I feel ashamed when I open myself up and expose myself, warts and all, to people. I also have friends who are a mixture of liberal and conservative and I treasure and respect them all equally and, quite frankly, I'm afraid of offending them. In time, I probably will, but it's always a consideration when I write in my blog.
4. Can I just say that the amount of pleasure I just got from saying "my blog" in the last point is disturbingly close to the amount off pleasure I got from introducing my first girlfriend, Maha, to the world as "my girlfriend".
5. I know, I'm a total tool.
6. I feel it puts you at a disadvantage when you meet new people who didn't have to do much to research you. They know your ins and outs, your weaknesses and fake strengths, your peaks and valleys. Do I really want to give a stranger this much power over me? Call me paranoid but it makes me uncomfortable. How do you do it, Stephanie? Doesn't it bother you, in the midst of a first date, that a man might be telling you what you want to hear verbatim from the June 19th entry?
7. Maybe with time I'll be more open. It's a process...everything is. You assure me, I learn to open up, you forsake me and I feel exposed and wounded. I can dig that.
Chris is a blogger after my own heart. Doesn't say anything too serious or deep (though he sometimes says controversial things) and doesn't expose himself too much. But even he has a degree of brazen honesty that I respect. He makes his feelings known. He says it.
I'm afraid of offending people. The irony is that people who know me think I live off saying the controversial thing to make an impression. I do (I have) but it's never a controversial thing closely related to ME.
posted by Basil Epicurus at 10:18 AM
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