Sunday 5 July 2009

Windmills of your mind

swirl

It's been a week and I said I'd write more about truthfulness and honesty in blogging. To be honest, I'm not sure what I'm going to say so I'll just let my fingers do the walking and see where we end up.

Last week I wasn't feeling entirely stable, it's very hard living here entirely alone for a lot of the time. The isolation leads you to trying to make connections that aren't there and human pattern making skills are exceptionally clever at extrapolating entire scenarios from a single word or lack of it. This leads to whole philosophies being built of straw.

I think people need truthfulness at a very basic level. We may be so many quanta swirling in a maelstrom of possibilities but our animal selves require some solid touchstones.

And how does this relate to blogging, exactly? I don't know in any incontrovertible way because it is a very free form medium. I'm drawn to blogs that are, or appear to be, real journals from real people even though I know from my own blogging that what is portrayed is often slanted or altered for all sorts of reasons, few of them to do with deliberate untruthfulness but usually to protect family or friends who might be reading. Where the line between that necessary censorship and total invention lies is always going to be hard to determine but it is uncomfortable for readers who relate to situations described by a blogger to realise that they have been empathising with someone's work of fantasy. Who wants to be taken for a sucker?

So it comes back to self knowledge and managing one's own expectations. After about 15 years of experiencing large parts of my life online, I should be better able to do this. Sadly, it looks like I still haven't quite got the knack.

Anyway, although I've not even broached the writing issues touched on in the comments the shrink in my head suggests I should wrap this up now because it feels just a tad self indulgent. Bring on the cling film because that's all folks.

privy

3 comments:

joker the lurcher said...

i love these pictures - they go just right with your post. i have liked reading your thoughtful stuff; it has made me think more deeply than i usually do. maybe you will write more like this at some point?

ICQB said...

Such a thought provoking post...

Catofstripes said...

Thank you both. I don't think I should hang up my hoe for a career in philosophy any time soon but it's nice to unburden once in a while.