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.
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branchandroot
yeah. what you said.
Date: 2004-04-26 01:19 pm (UTC)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.