![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rinueThis should not be an entry that I have to write, but after three cases of being proven wrong about its superfluity it would be folly to delay further.
This is my journal. That's something that means a lot to me, because I've never really had a journal before and I find I value this one more every day. It has allowed me to meet wonderful people I could not have found otherwise, and it has helped those who were already my friends to know me better. It acts as record to the past year of my life. More than that, it creates an electronic haven for me, a home I can access from anywhere in the world to store my most delicate parts. Sometimes, I feel like it's the only thing in my life that I can be sure of, and I need that touchstone.
I am flattered that all of you read this. I smile deep in my chest whenever I read my friends list, or get a comment from someone not on it. It means something to me that you care enough to wonder what I think, or at least that you find it entertaining.
That said, I am not writing for you -- at least, not as individuals. When I create an entry, I do not think "who will read this and dislike it?" I write what I need to write -- whatever feeling is true to the time and place. Occasionally, I use the past as an allegorical tool and impose current emotions on past actions. Occasionally, I turn my friends (and myself) into characters and flatiron their motives to illustrate a deeper point. Occasionally, I make a strong case for something I don't believe, simply because definition limits it.
At no time do I use my journal as a message board to mount a personal attack on someone I could not hurt in person. If I say something unflattering immediately after I call someone "friend," you can be reasonably certain that I am making an example -- if this was someone whom I profoundly disliked, I would not give them the compliment of that title, (which does mean something to me. If you spend enough time around me, you will begin to pick up on the minor distinctions I make in introducing people. There are entire hierarchies, on which "friend" is toward the top.)
Essentially, this medium is intensely private. I have heard all the arguments that if I really wanted privacy, I would take things offline, but to me this is akin to saying you should not post fics unless you are prepared for flames. I am cutting off pieces of myself to make slides for your microscopes because I believe that letting you learn who I am is a worthwhile endeavor for both of us. If I were to lock my journal away to be read by only the few acolytes who already knew my secrets, it would lose its point -- which is to promote understanding of who I am by trying to explain it to others.
This presents an interesting dichotomy: it is neccessary for me to have readers, but it is equally neccessary for me to be secure in the knowledge that they will not murder me in the bath while my sword waits across the room. I cannot offer my neck to a headsman in danger of striking.
This is a journal. It is my perception of events in the moment that I am writing, while trying to convey a complex concept to an audience with a different background. It is not a biography. It is not a legal docket. It is a catalogue of insights, shaped but not limited by conventional reality.
Rule one of reading a journal -- the only rule, really -- is that you don't read it unless you can handle what you are reading. Since some people seem to find this concept unclear, I will delinate it further.
a. If I've met you, I've formed an impression of your good and your bad points. I may mention these bad points, just as I may mention the good, and you need to be prepared for that.
b. If you disagree with me ideologically, I welcome the debate, but you will have to give me the benefit of the doubt because it is my arena. I am the one taking all the risks.
c. Although I sometimes warn specific people about specific journal entries, that does not mean that those without an articulated warning do not carry an implied warning.
d. If you cannot accept a caracature portrayal of yourself, you have no business ever reading a journal by someone who knows you. Of course you are a character. I am a character, albeit a much more complex one. There is not the space for anything else. This journal is about me, not you, and chances are that none of the readers cares about your motivations. If they wanted your justification, they would be reading your journal. If I actually entreated people to find and heckle you, you would have some legal and moral justification for recourse, but particularly when I am using a nickname that nobody but me calls you, there is no cause to worry about its impact on your life.
e. Since you are a character, I am under no obligation to present you using your standard of accuracy. Look beyond the facts to see the message.
f. I know you are not actually a character, and any motivation I ascribe to you within the journal is not an indication that I truly believe your thought processes to be one-dimensional.
g. If you think that I don't understand you completely, it's probably because I don't. You don't understand me either, and neither of us understand the other people in the situation. We have been present at different events and been told different stories. It is a fool's chessgame to argue whose perception of events is correct, and whoever fights me has only the pawns.
h. If you're here, you can hurt me. If you're alive, you can impose a moral judgement. If you have something to prove, do it somewhere else. This is a minefield of caltrips for high horses. Enter only on foot.
Having stated the rules, I do not actually expect them to be followed, because I have no power to enforce them. I should be able to rely on the logic of the situation -- if reading this hurts you, you should stop reading -- but very few people are logical. I should be able to assume people understand the journal in its context as a journal, especially if they keep them themselves, and that they realize I have more information than I'm giving them, or than they witnessed -- but people as a whole enjoy making non-contexual moral judgements as justification for their own lives, whether or not such things are appropriate to the venue. Simply because I wear a ballgown to the opera does not mean I can expect my fellow patrons to forego overalls.
In Patrick's journal, I have read that he wanted to kill me, or me to kill him. I took it at face value.
In Dee's journal, I have read that I am intimidating, and I took it at face value.
In Chad's journal, I read that he loved me, and I took it at face value.
If you could not do the same in my situation, get out. Get out and never come back. Retreating is not always the action of a coward; the honorable man does not strike an unarmed opponent. Revenge is for penny dupes.
This is my journal. That's something that means a lot to me, because I've never really had a journal before and I find I value this one more every day. It has allowed me to meet wonderful people I could not have found otherwise, and it has helped those who were already my friends to know me better. It acts as record to the past year of my life. More than that, it creates an electronic haven for me, a home I can access from anywhere in the world to store my most delicate parts. Sometimes, I feel like it's the only thing in my life that I can be sure of, and I need that touchstone.
I am flattered that all of you read this. I smile deep in my chest whenever I read my friends list, or get a comment from someone not on it. It means something to me that you care enough to wonder what I think, or at least that you find it entertaining.
That said, I am not writing for you -- at least, not as individuals. When I create an entry, I do not think "who will read this and dislike it?" I write what I need to write -- whatever feeling is true to the time and place. Occasionally, I use the past as an allegorical tool and impose current emotions on past actions. Occasionally, I turn my friends (and myself) into characters and flatiron their motives to illustrate a deeper point. Occasionally, I make a strong case for something I don't believe, simply because definition limits it.
At no time do I use my journal as a message board to mount a personal attack on someone I could not hurt in person. If I say something unflattering immediately after I call someone "friend," you can be reasonably certain that I am making an example -- if this was someone whom I profoundly disliked, I would not give them the compliment of that title, (which does mean something to me. If you spend enough time around me, you will begin to pick up on the minor distinctions I make in introducing people. There are entire hierarchies, on which "friend" is toward the top.)
Essentially, this medium is intensely private. I have heard all the arguments that if I really wanted privacy, I would take things offline, but to me this is akin to saying you should not post fics unless you are prepared for flames. I am cutting off pieces of myself to make slides for your microscopes because I believe that letting you learn who I am is a worthwhile endeavor for both of us. If I were to lock my journal away to be read by only the few acolytes who already knew my secrets, it would lose its point -- which is to promote understanding of who I am by trying to explain it to others.
This presents an interesting dichotomy: it is neccessary for me to have readers, but it is equally neccessary for me to be secure in the knowledge that they will not murder me in the bath while my sword waits across the room. I cannot offer my neck to a headsman in danger of striking.
This is a journal. It is my perception of events in the moment that I am writing, while trying to convey a complex concept to an audience with a different background. It is not a biography. It is not a legal docket. It is a catalogue of insights, shaped but not limited by conventional reality.
Rule one of reading a journal -- the only rule, really -- is that you don't read it unless you can handle what you are reading. Since some people seem to find this concept unclear, I will delinate it further.
a. If I've met you, I've formed an impression of your good and your bad points. I may mention these bad points, just as I may mention the good, and you need to be prepared for that.
b. If you disagree with me ideologically, I welcome the debate, but you will have to give me the benefit of the doubt because it is my arena. I am the one taking all the risks.
c. Although I sometimes warn specific people about specific journal entries, that does not mean that those without an articulated warning do not carry an implied warning.
d. If you cannot accept a caracature portrayal of yourself, you have no business ever reading a journal by someone who knows you. Of course you are a character. I am a character, albeit a much more complex one. There is not the space for anything else. This journal is about me, not you, and chances are that none of the readers cares about your motivations. If they wanted your justification, they would be reading your journal. If I actually entreated people to find and heckle you, you would have some legal and moral justification for recourse, but particularly when I am using a nickname that nobody but me calls you, there is no cause to worry about its impact on your life.
e. Since you are a character, I am under no obligation to present you using your standard of accuracy. Look beyond the facts to see the message.
f. I know you are not actually a character, and any motivation I ascribe to you within the journal is not an indication that I truly believe your thought processes to be one-dimensional.
g. If you think that I don't understand you completely, it's probably because I don't. You don't understand me either, and neither of us understand the other people in the situation. We have been present at different events and been told different stories. It is a fool's chessgame to argue whose perception of events is correct, and whoever fights me has only the pawns.
h. If you're here, you can hurt me. If you're alive, you can impose a moral judgement. If you have something to prove, do it somewhere else. This is a minefield of caltrips for high horses. Enter only on foot.
Having stated the rules, I do not actually expect them to be followed, because I have no power to enforce them. I should be able to rely on the logic of the situation -- if reading this hurts you, you should stop reading -- but very few people are logical. I should be able to assume people understand the journal in its context as a journal, especially if they keep them themselves, and that they realize I have more information than I'm giving them, or than they witnessed -- but people as a whole enjoy making non-contexual moral judgements as justification for their own lives, whether or not such things are appropriate to the venue. Simply because I wear a ballgown to the opera does not mean I can expect my fellow patrons to forego overalls.
In Patrick's journal, I have read that he wanted to kill me, or me to kill him. I took it at face value.
In Dee's journal, I have read that I am intimidating, and I took it at face value.
In Chad's journal, I read that he loved me, and I took it at face value.
If you could not do the same in my situation, get out. Get out and never come back. Retreating is not always the action of a coward; the honorable man does not strike an unarmed opponent. Revenge is for penny dupes.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2002-05-06 05:35 pm (UTC)Disabling anonymous posters, I suppose, wouldn't help.
When I was in elementary school, there was a big to-do when one of my friends found another's extra-special secret diary, picked the lock, and read it, and then was incredibly angry about what she read. What was amazing was that everyone took the side of the reader, not the writer, when obviously it was the reader who had enormously violated trust and had not respected the right of the writer to work out her thoughts, both positive and negative, in writing.
This is a somewhat similar situation, but of course you and your readers are in a straightforward, ostensibly honest relationship: they should read your journal as long as they understand in what context it ought to be interpreted.
Lots of people on my list have recently had big LJ issues, which inevitably leads to meta-discussion on journals about journals. But really it all seems so obvious.
My longwinded way of saying, man, that sucks, poor Romie. *kiss*