{"id":80,"date":"2003-07-28T22:23:57","date_gmt":"2003-07-29T05:23:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hypotyposis.net\/blog\/?p=80"},"modified":"2003-07-28T22:23:57","modified_gmt":"2003-07-29T05:23:57","slug":"time-out-on-vulnerable-self-revelation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hypotyposis.net\/blog\/2003\/07\/28\/time-out-on-vulnerable-self-revelation\/","title":{"rendered":"Time out on “vulnerable” self-revelation?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the last week or so, as I've started to writing in much greater detail
\n about my life, I've felt both exhilarated and worried. I've kept a private personal
\n journal (off and on) since my early teens in which I have poured out my heart
\n and processed my doubts and deep heart questions. I continue to value that private
\n space -- and no one should think that my blog is exactly the same as my journal!
\n But the problem with my journal writing is that it was sometimes terribly lazy.
\n I'd write about the same thing over and over again; I make commitments that
\n I soon forget and to which no one could hold me accountable -- since no one
\n knew of my self-promises.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I've known for a while that there is really no substitute for writing for an
\n external audience. Hence, over a year ago, I started a mailing list that I was
\n planning to send to willing friends and family -- but not to the general public.
\n The plan was to write something interesting every day. I chose the mailing list
\n format to limit dissemination to select folks. I figure that I would get the
\n advantages of writing for others while protecting my privacy. Before I launched
\n the mailing list, I practiced to see how whether I could write something interesting
\n every day. I ran out of steam during my practice run, and the mailing list was
\n never launched.<\/p>\n

Writing in the open has sparked serendipitous human connections, true gifts
\n of grace. Two recent examples: First, my listing of my
\n own life roles<\/a> sparked Mark
\n Sentell's list of life roles<\/a> -- and a new connection across the country.
\n In all the years since I first came across this concept, I never had opportunity
\n to share a key conceptual framework with others, even among any of wonderful,
\n close friends or family. (Isn't it odd that those closest to us should not know
\n things so dear to us?) The list I wrote wasn't a secret; I would have gladly
\n shared it with anyone who wanted to know. I suppose what was key is that the
\n sharing had to happen in the right context. I needed to be able to set that
\n context -- and there weren't too many opportunities to talk at this level with
\n friends.) <\/p>\n

The second example is Scot
\n Hacker's pointing me<\/a> to a relevant Salon
\n piece on transportation<\/a> in response to my
\n post on biking<\/a>. Scot was not a stranger to me since he and I both spoke
\n on a panel on RSS<\/a>
\n on the Berkeley campus. I didn't know, however, that he was an avid bicyclist.
\n I had read the Salon piece to which Scot had referred but had chosen not to
\n link to it since it was not openly available to non-Salon subscribers. When
\n I made that point to Scot, as well as despair at ever being able effect positive
\n change in transportation reform, he made two points that impresed me: that we
\n should be pointing to Salon since it was worth reading and deserved subscribers
\n and that we should ride our bikes with relish and not despair. His email made
\n my day, changed my mind, and lifted my spirit.<\/p>\n

Let me now turn from the exhilaration of self-revealing blogging to the misgivings
\n I've felt about my blogging. I've hinted about my concerns, most clearly with
\n my post "Honest,
\n open, and foolish?<\/a>" but also in the context of posting my
\n life roles<\/a> and outlining a rough
\n chronology<\/a> of my life. My uneasiness has been the subject of two conversations
\n I had yesterday and today -- last night with my friend Peter, who is a regular
\n reader of my blog, and over lunch today with Chris<\/a>.
\n Peter was very surpised with how self-disclosing I've been recently. I shared
\n with him my own doubts about what I've been doing but told him more about why
\n I'm doing what I'm doing. (I have yet to explain some of those ideas here.)
\n Chris asked me whether there was something specific that I'm worried about.
\n Though I'm concerned about a lot of potential bad things that can come from
\n blogging -- government data-mining\/surveillance, cyber-stalking, rubbing some
\n anonymous nut the wrong way, discrimination by some future job employer, giving
\n plenty of information about myself to someone who wants to hurt me in some way
\n ("knowledge is power") -- I've not been able to nail down any concrete
\n worries. And though I've started to be more revealing of who I am, what I have
\n disclosed is still rather tame and limited compared to a lot of other stuff
\n out there. <\/p>\n

So what to do? I don't want to spend too much time on "meta-blogging",
\n blogging about blogging -- which is what I'm doing here right now. But I need
\n to deal with the issue of what to say and how much to say before I forge ahead.
\n I am looking for insight in this matter. It's probably a good time to look at
\n some of the blogging books for wisdom. Google has already revealed a couple
\n of interesting pointers [1<\/a>,
\n 2<\/a>]. (Whenver I
\n look at other blogs for discussion along these lines, I sense that I'm going
\n through a common stage in blogging -- there must be a FAQ on this topic.)<\/p>\n

While I sort out the question of what I am comfortable writing about, I'll
\n probably blog on topics about which I feel less vulnerable. There's lot that
\n I want to write about without putting myself out too far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"