The Meta Post

I have to say, I enjoy blogging. I feel like I have to have something interesting to write in order to post and I can't really go on an on about all the people in my life the way you can in a private journal. I also have some taboos regarding writing about my intimate life and things that go on at work - which is always a big no no. But these are certainly things one might have read in a bedside journal of mine from the far past. My journal was where I bitched about life's problems and talked through my fears of inadequacy at being a mother, or the latest hot gossip at work that you can't tell anyone, or any number of strange private thoughts that flit to the surface when your pen is scratching across a tablet on your knees. That's where blogging draws the line. For me it has a filter and a grammar check. I know there are blogs all over the world where people spill their guts and most private secrets - but those people usually live to regret that decision. I have a teenage daughter who may read this and a boyfriend who subscribes to it and a job and a family and, well, generally, an appearance to keep up.

Besides the content there's also the part about how it gets me writing. I wish I had more time to blog but really I wish I had more time to write. I like organizing my thoughts into coherent sentences and deciding on whether or not to include a visual to help with what I'm describing. I like drafting and structuring what I'm trying to convey.

And of course, beyond the content and the structure, conveyance begs the question of "to whom?" So there is the 'reader.' The fact that your words are virtually published for the world at large. I post my theses to the door. My press release on life, gone to print, as it were. I've learned that you can keep in touch with people via blogging. If I read someone's blog I get an idea of what's going on with them, what they are working on, if anything. Not a lot of posting means either nothing is going on; or so much is going on that I can't write now and the reader will find out all about it later, maybe, if that's what I decide to write about. There's the third option that what ever is going on is of the taboo ilk.

[whisper]shhhhh non-postable.[/whisper]

So, yes. Keeping in touch via blogging. Once I was fortunate enough to participate in a survey Google sent out and I thought, Oh Perfect! I LOVE that they asked ME what I think because I'm Google's biggest fan! I couldn't wait to get through the seven pages or so of yes/no check boxes and drop down menus to the text box so I could really sing their praises. However, I remember one of the questions that was asked was something like:

I keep in touch with the majority of my circle of contacts by (number the following in order of 1=most often used and 6=least)
_ telephone
_ in person conversation
_ e-mail
_ chat
_ blogging
_ post service

Now, earlier they had asked the surveyed to define their circle of contacts in terms of how many people they communicated with in a given week including people at work, people at home, people you only know over the internet, etc. So I had to come up with a number and then offer a percentage breakdown of what category the contacts fell into. So anyway that made it an interesting question because of the work people. There are people I work with who I communicate with every given week who I have never even met but I e-mail back and forth to them because they are my contact for that particular thing. So I had to choose e-mail as the most frequently used method of communication. But at the time I took the survey I chose blogging as the least used and even privately snorted that "who 'keeps in touch with their friends' by BLOGGING? That's such a one-sided conversation." But I get it now. I understand that you can keep up with people by reading their blog. I subscribe to my friends' and family's blogs (if they keep them and I know about it) and if I'm posting about my life on my blog and you want to know what's going on, well, it's kind of your responsibility to read up on my life if I'm publishing it for all the world to read. Conversely, I really enjoy reading my friends' blogs to keep in touch with them. It resembles asynchronous learning, or the theory of Piaget's regarding the ability to learn when the learner actively seeks the knowledge rather than passively accepting whatever is being taught. It places the onus of responsibility on me to read the blogs of my circle. So I accept that responsibility and in turn publish my own for you.

So read on..
LOVE