I miss g-blog because it was a rather random community. I only started off knowing a few people but then I was the catalyst for pulling some people into blogging there. That was neato. Indirectly there are a lot of people who are now on lj because of g-blog and the circle of people I influenced. The funny thing is–I no longer really talk to the main person who I pulled onto g-blog who pulled a bunch of other people. Evolution is an odd thing.
But I miss feeling free to talk about just about anything in public. The fact that people here know me more or at least, feel like they know me more, changes the audience. On g-blog I didn’t really feel like people were judging me even though at times they probably were. It felt more like the people didn’t know me and didn’t try to claim they did. There were many things I didn’t hesitate to say there, even with it being totally public, that I censor here down to a very small filter. Why? Who am I afraid of? Why do I care how people will judge me? I no longer have a job to hide behind. I have never worried about my family finding this. Sure, now I have a few minors reading this–but oh well. I probably did on g-blog too. It didn’t stop me from posting extremely detailed stories about my sex life.
I liked feeling like I had nothing to hide. I liked feeling like I was being honest with everyone. Lately I have usually been hiding anything serious behind a small filter because I don’t like feeling judged, but oh bloody well if people judge me. If people think I am too crazy/obnoxious/rude/inappropriate then they don’t have to read.
I guess it’s time to stop being friends-only.
Maybe its time indeed
I used to have two LJs, one of which was ribbin, and one of which was anonymous. Very, very few people knew about both (as in, one or two), but they were useful to rant, to rave and no worry about being found out.
At this point, I can even remember the user name of my “secret” journal. I vaguely do, but every permutation I’ve tried doesn’t work, so I guess it’s been deleted long since. Ah, well.
I have been going the friend’s only route because I have found that people have used what I have to say against me…as you know, I can be quite vulnerable when I write…and for me, I just don’t want everyone knowing what is going on in my life…but when I do write something, I think to myself, would I be okay with everyone reading this if it DID become public? Or is what I am writing giving me a queasy feeling when I think of it being public? If the answer to the later of the two is “yes” then I have to seriously think about what my motives are when writing such an entry and what it is about the entry that makes me uncomfortable…chances are, I am out of integrity.
However, I admire you for having the courage and conviction to put yourself out there. I admire you for being strong enough to open up your blog to the public, dealing with judgments if any may come your way…not taking judgments personally is one of my greatest challenges so my hat goes off to you…you rock!
I’m sure I will still put some stuff behind filters–I’m not as brave as I might seem. 🙂 But there are a lot of things I’ve been private about for no good reason and that is what I want to change.
you should invent, like, this really odd person.
and blog as her (or him (or it)).
LJ is Big Enough that you could vanish into it.
i miss g-blog, too.
the entries here (mine included) are much tamer.
maybe we’ve all fallen into the same-ol-same-ol?
from now on.
no entries that don’t contain one of the following words:
penis,
cunt,
or
lavalamp.
deal?
Lavalamp? I dinno… that’s kind of a stretch for me. I’ll see how I feel about that. 😉
it could be a *little* lavalamp.
them don’t stretch you so much.
i hear.
I was thinking about this too recently. Came back from a long LJ-hiatus and noticed that I was friends-locking stuff that I never would have before. There are reasons, and I think in some ways I’m being truer to the fact that I *am* an introvert.
But I sort of miss it: take it or leave it, take me or leave me. Refusing to follow other people’s rules for what should stay private and what should be public. There’s healing in that, I think.
What I’ve been doing is going back after a few days and rereading anything. I find that when I first post, I’m more vulnerable, and it’s nice to have that little shield between myself and the world. Later, when the thoughts have settled, I make it public. Even if no one reads it, it feels good to be open.
Best of everything to you– know we haven’t been in touch/whatnot, but I send good vibes your way=)
Amusingly, I have uhhh gone over and read your journal a few times to catch up. *blush* Yes, I admit it…. I am an lj-stalker.
I think about you periodically and miss you. I hope you are doing well.
I’ve thought about this a lot too. The format was just easier to feel like you got to know people you didn’t know. it was like a teensy transglobal neighborhood. I felt freer to post without filters ( even though there was no choice) because I figured not many people knew g-blogs existed and so clients would have a hard time finding me there. I know many of my clients post on this blog engine monster and so thus the need for friend’s only filters for the majority of my stuff. But I got to know people better on g-blog, got to stay in touch with old friends, got to have hissy fit fights with ex wives and their affairees, and was introduced to a few new folk.
I also miss fotolog for many of the same reasons. It still exists but it broke down and never was what it was before. I actually made a few real in person live friends off that site *and* learned some Portuguese. Flickr has never been as good.
I think I agree with you…..I’m leaning towards unlocking my posts, too. My reasons for locking were anonymity based, but since I don’t use real names, anyone who did find my blog would have to have gone looking for it and put more than two and two together, and I think that falls under the category of “if you don’t like what you find, maybe you shouldn’t have been snooping so hard.”
Yeah…I think so.