Disclaimer

I often find myself questioning whether what I am about to write/just wrote, belongs in a public forum, assuming first that there are people who are reading this, but second, and more importantly, there might be important people who are Googling me. The rule of thumb is, if you question it, it probably doesn't belong here.

There was a period when things were simple. When I wrote in LiveJournal on a daily basis, wrote whatever I wanted and whenever I wanted. Yes, I was also 16 when I started, literally (though I've kept a diary since I was 6 that stopped after LJ). Some time down the road, when LiveJournal no longer served its purpose, I began to try out all types of platforms and trying to figure out the right medium for my blogging. Although Blogspot has been the only platform that I actually continued to update regularly over the years, I have never been 100% satisfied with it. For one, it's totally and completely public--searchable, even. I could turn it off, the search function. I could, in fact, make it even private so only people I "invite" can read this, but then what's the point of putting it online?

I realized today that I've searched for the "perfect" platform in the last few years in vain because I've had this rationale that as long as I can perfectly define my "goal" for blogging, then I'll be able to find the perfect platform. My first mistake was to assume that there is a perfect goal and therefore a perfect platform. My goal was to find a space where I can write about my thoughts and feelings that can be read by a public I choose (e.g., not potential employers) as well as a space where I can write about my less personal and (presumably) more intellectual observations that can be read by anyone. Of course, there is no platform where you can keep specific people out without even knowing potentially who they are and what their credential is. So then I tried workarounds. Keep a public blog that has what I deem to be "good" writing and then another blog that I can write garbage, edited thoughts, and then maybe another private space where writing is a therapy. But then the lines blur and no one has the time to maintain multiple blogs. In the end, I always come back here, often struggling with the type of content that I put on here.

My second mistake, was that, as obvious as it might sound, I naively believed that there could be a public/semi-public space for personal thoughts and feelings at my age. The word "personal" alone already indicates something that does not belong in the "public." At the end of the day, if you are going to put unedited thoughts and (*GASP*) feelings online, you're going to be judged, like it or not. But if you are going to edit the thoughts and extract the feeling, then the blog becomes impersonal and no longer a method for self-expression.

I've noticed lately as I click on "random" blogs that there seemed to be two groups of bloggers:
1. impersonal blogs written by anyone of any age about any topic (sometimes about their lives but without personal thoughts or feelings) and
2. personal blogs written by either teenagers (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/fashion/blogging-as-therapy-for-teenagers.html) or stay-at-home  moms (most of whom are Christian, which deserves an entire research paper--why are they mostly Christian?)
Note that the second group have less to lose when writing about their personal lives.
In fact, the only people I personally know who place any sort of self-expression online, blog in Chinese--for that extra security barrier--or they start a blog that not many know about, and when the readership grows, they start to delete and censor and find a new space, only to eventually come back to the old one for its readership but write more cryptically or impersonally. Sounds familiar.

The reason why blogs are popular, beyond money-making, is the sheer fact that many people do want to find ways to express the self to other human beings--be it one person or some unknown audience. It feels good. And blogs are the perfect way to do it without impinging on your best friend's free time. On the other hand you run into the issue of being judged by potential people that may affect your future. So the careful balance of finding that audience that you are looking for while keeping out the audience you don't want, is near impossible. So most people just stop trying.

I am neither 16 nor a stay-at-home Mom, so my sometimes ignorant and unaware observations and sometimes less ignorant and hopefully more insightful unedited thoughts and feelings don't belong online. I should be smarter about what I put here (Celine's blog has a perfect balance of picture blogging her life without getting personal). I do realize that putting a "self" online, albeit somewhat censored, exposes all types of weakness. And yet, here we are.

The only theory I have right now on why I continue to do this is that I might not be ready to turn my back on my 16 year-old self yet. Am I missing something that hasn't allowed me to move on? Is my need for "self-expression" that great? I still haven't quite figured it out. So I think this entry serves as a disclaimer, in that despite knowing the dangers of putting a "self" online that gets judged, and despite often cringing when going through my archives, I continue to do it. Maybe I'll regret this one day, maybe I won't. I do, however, like the idea that it's for the sake of finding something young to take with me as I age.

Plus, as long as my exposés are tl;dr, then I'm safe.