Dazed and Confused...

[cybermathwitch]

I'm not entirely sure what/how to write in this sometimes. Not in the technical sense, but in the social sense. Several of my friends are also RL friends, and occasionally that presents a sticky problem. It isn't even a secret-keeping thing - if there's something secret I have to ruminate about I'll either post it under private or write it down in my paper journal. What it is is a matter of interpretation and appearances - I don't want anyone to assume that things that I write here are meant to be manipulative in any way. On the one hand, everything is going to manipulate to some degree (one of the prevailing ideas behind memes) and anything read will have an emotional response (or at least a mental one). But what I'm worried about is a matter of *intention*, rather than result. I don't intend to use this journal to manipulate anyone in a malicious way, or as a front to shield myself.

I've been pondering the issue quite a bit over the last year or so when there were suddenly people on my journal that I saw everyday and were going to read and be effected by what I wrote. It's not at *all* that I don't want them to be there, I adore them and love this forum. I just want to make it clear, I suppose, to everyone, really (because this could as easily be an issue w/ OL friends as well) that if I'm writing something in here it's to ponder, work out thoughts, maybe get advice (or congratulations, or hugs, or support), but not to make a pointed message at anyone through this medium instead of talking to them face to face.

What I do want is to release myself from feeling like I have to censor what I say. (No one but me has laid that edict on me, mind you. It's pretty much been my struggle between ethics and rights.)

I have two choices in the matter.
1. I can filter posts so that all of my OL friends can see the entry(s?) on occasion, but the people I may or may not be writing about can't,

Or

2. I can just post whatever the hell I want and not censor myself just because I might be worried about who would or wouldn't read it. One thing my mom always told me when I was growing up was never write anything (ostensibly in a journal) that I wouldn't want her to read. It stuck with me (ingrained over time), and I still find it difficult sometimes to write what wouldn't be entirely socially acceptable.

Option 1 just plain feels like lying to others, and option 0 (not posting re: issues, at all) feels like I'm lying to or stifling myself.

So, in a search for advice - what would you all do in that kind of a situation?

Comments

yeah. what you said.

[snazzyokapi.livejournal.com]

i've been wondering that for some time now. when i originally started my journal, it was to help me unleash some of my pent up thoughts and to vent about my life, whatever i had going on. for a large part, i started the journal to help me deal with a bad living situation. about 2 weeks ago i found out that although i'd never told them that i had a journal, or my screenname, and without giving me any indication of doing so, my roommates - although i should now say former roommates - have been reading my journal. i know this because my journal showed up on their history on their computer, which john was looking at to find a website he had found while using thier computer a few days before. i don't know how long they've been reading, or what they think about the things that i've said about them here. but i feel very... violated. in a very deep way. and now i'm stuck with this feeling that i can't post anything that i wouldn't want them to read, or at least make it private or friends only, but to me even making my journal friends only defeats the whole purpose. i don't want to limit what i write, and i don't want to limit who can read what i write, but... knowing that They could at any time read my journal has basically stopped me from writing the things that i wanted the journal to write about in the first place. and now i don't know what to do.

i think one thing to keep in mind is that while this is a very open and accessible forum, it is exactly what the name implies - a journal. if this is the place that you have found to work out your thoughts and feelings and the things going on in your daily life, then anything you write here should be accepted by any readers as such. if any one who reads your journal takes what you've written as anything other than that - a journal, your impressions of the things and people in your life, your thoughts and feelings and observations and question about life, the universe, and everything - then they should be ashamed of themselves. and if they're the type who think so poorly of you that they would think that you were recording things in your journal knowing they would read it to try to somehow manipulate them, then they're probably not the people whose opinions you need to be worrying about anyway. of course, you know me, and i've been saying things like that since high school, and can't manage to listen to my own adivce, so... there you go.

this has probably been a longer reply than you were expecting, and a very long and roundabout way indeed to say... i don't know. i been chewing on that one myself.

[cybermathwitch.livejournal.com]

Have I mentioned lately that you're one of my favorite people? ::g::

I don't have any qualms with making a journal friends only - the people I'm thinking of are on my friends list anyway. But I think I decided to go with option 2 in any case. I still mark most of those posts as only friends, but that's mostly so my parents couldn't accidentally stumble upon them. There are some things in my life that they just don't need to know. ::eg::