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Why
I've been doing a lot of thinking about the purpose of this journal, particularly after reading ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
emshort's thoughts on the web journal phenomenon (both in her journal and in an essay on her website) and subsequent musings from Storme and Kiz. Then today, I read Diane Patterson's "Why Web Journals Suck", a very interesting essay/rant/guide that could also go by the less inflammatory title "Why Only Very Few Web Journals Manage Not To Suck." So with a slow day at work, I thought I'd take some time to state clearly why I have a Web Journal.
First and foremost, I wanted to give friends (met in person or on the internet) a chance to find out about my life. This past year plus that I've been working nocturnally, I've been very aware that I don't connect with everyone I'd like as much as I'd like. It can be very easy to forget to tell someone something because that person didn't happen to log into AIM before I went to sleep. With a web journal, I don't have to worry as much about friends missing the important information that tells how my life is going. When I intend to ask someone on a date, the people who would be interested to know this generally find out, even if they are not around when I declare, in person or on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
ifmud, "I'm going to ask her out tonight." And if something unlucky happens (say, the girl I intended to ask out disappeared before I got a chance to do so), I needn't repeat this embarrassing fact to many different people.
Also, I wanted to keep a web journal so that I could write about the trivial aspects of my life. I can whine pointlessly about the attorneys whose work I have to correct. (Since these documents are privileged, I am unable, morally and legally, to go into the detail of many of these documents that would make them very interesting.) I can exult when I solve a cryptogram or hook up DSL to the home computer. What makes the web journal a perfect outlet for these statements is that there is no expectation of response. I realize that not everyone cares how I feel about the daily crossword puzzles, but it is a part of my daily life, and it's something I like to share with my friends. But if I were at lunch with my sister and I started talking about how the theme of the Friday Wall Street Journal Puzzle worked, she would be placed in a position of having to answer me, bound by the rules of polite conversation. (Knowing my sister, she'd probably say, "[TableSaw], I don't care," but not all are so brazenly honest.) I fully expect that many readers of my web journal mentally delete any paragraph that has the letters "NYTX" in it, and I don't mind. I like to believe, of course, that there are those for whom this little tidbit is interesting, and it heartens me to know that I can state my opinions to those who are interested while those who aren't can politely ignore.
This brings me around to my next reason: my audience. I've never been good with journals or diaries because ultimately I am confronted with the same question: "Who's reading this?" I don't believe in writing for myself; to me, that's just thinking with some pointless middle work. I believe that a written word needs a reader to justify it, to make it real. So my journals have tended to be filled more with notes for other, public works rather than anything about my life. Writing in a web journal resolves this dilemma. Admittedly, I am restrained by social politics in a way I would not be with a personal journal. I will not write, for example, about how much I dislike X-------- if I know that X or his friends are reading. But knowing that someone is reading, regardless of their opinions or approval, makes it easier, for example, to write about my feelings regarding the Church or my fear and my excitement surrounding a date.
Lastly, there's a certain way I think which attracts me to the web journal.kizlj wrote "I don't need to narrate my life." Well, I do. I often find myself narrating life in my head. My internal monologue often switches to that of me describing to an nonexistent listener what I did and how it felt, while I'm doing and feeling those things. Many of these thoughts and lines of thinking die away quickly, the way thoughts do, but many form themselves into concrete words. Conversation never seems to be the best place to bring them up, because conversation is more about give and take. When I talk to someone, I want to know what they are going to say and what new topics will be addressed, leaving behind a wake of half-finished thoughts. Not the place to drop down a somewhat long and personal monologue. So plop they go into the journal.
My journal, then, is intended to be a collection of important information about me, trivial information about me and assorted other personal thoughts, screeds and other writings that exhibit my personal outlook on life, directed to relatively intelligent and trustworthy persons who are friends or are otherwise interested in me. It all sounds very egotistical written like that, but I believe my life is interesting enough to dedicate all of my time to living it, so I figure that it's probably interesting enough for other people to spend a small amount of time reading about it.
One of the things that has been brought up in others' thoughts about the form of the web journal is that many people write too vaguely for any outside reader to understand the specifics of his or her life. I know that I am guilty of this, too. The title of this entry is Why. It will be followed shortly hereafter by Who, describing the people in my life and the various pseudonyms they have been assigned; Where, discussing the geography of where I live and my daily life; and What, explaining some of the things that I do quite a lot, including various puzzles and my job. (How doesn't seem appropriate to this conceit, and When is usually answered by the time stamp on each entry.) I hope that all of this goes some way to making my journal easier to understand, and I hope that you, dear reader, continue to give my meager electronic offerings your interest and attention.
emshort's thoughts on the web journal phenomenon (both in her journal and in an essay on her website) and subsequent musings from Storme and Kiz. Then today, I read Diane Patterson's "Why Web Journals Suck", a very interesting essay/rant/guide that could also go by the less inflammatory title "Why Only Very Few Web Journals Manage Not To Suck." So with a slow day at work, I thought I'd take some time to state clearly why I have a Web Journal.First and foremost, I wanted to give friends (met in person or on the internet) a chance to find out about my life. This past year plus that I've been working nocturnally, I've been very aware that I don't connect with everyone I'd like as much as I'd like. It can be very easy to forget to tell someone something because that person didn't happen to log into AIM before I went to sleep. With a web journal, I don't have to worry as much about friends missing the important information that tells how my life is going. When I intend to ask someone on a date, the people who would be interested to know this generally find out, even if they are not around when I declare, in person or on
ifmud, "I'm going to ask her out tonight." And if something unlucky happens (say, the girl I intended to ask out disappeared before I got a chance to do so), I needn't repeat this embarrassing fact to many different people.Also, I wanted to keep a web journal so that I could write about the trivial aspects of my life. I can whine pointlessly about the attorneys whose work I have to correct. (Since these documents are privileged, I am unable, morally and legally, to go into the detail of many of these documents that would make them very interesting.) I can exult when I solve a cryptogram or hook up DSL to the home computer. What makes the web journal a perfect outlet for these statements is that there is no expectation of response. I realize that not everyone cares how I feel about the daily crossword puzzles, but it is a part of my daily life, and it's something I like to share with my friends. But if I were at lunch with my sister and I started talking about how the theme of the Friday Wall Street Journal Puzzle worked, she would be placed in a position of having to answer me, bound by the rules of polite conversation. (Knowing my sister, she'd probably say, "[TableSaw], I don't care," but not all are so brazenly honest.) I fully expect that many readers of my web journal mentally delete any paragraph that has the letters "NYTX" in it, and I don't mind. I like to believe, of course, that there are those for whom this little tidbit is interesting, and it heartens me to know that I can state my opinions to those who are interested while those who aren't can politely ignore.
This brings me around to my next reason: my audience. I've never been good with journals or diaries because ultimately I am confronted with the same question: "Who's reading this?" I don't believe in writing for myself; to me, that's just thinking with some pointless middle work. I believe that a written word needs a reader to justify it, to make it real. So my journals have tended to be filled more with notes for other, public works rather than anything about my life. Writing in a web journal resolves this dilemma. Admittedly, I am restrained by social politics in a way I would not be with a personal journal. I will not write, for example, about how much I dislike X-------- if I know that X or his friends are reading. But knowing that someone is reading, regardless of their opinions or approval, makes it easier, for example, to write about my feelings regarding the Church or my fear and my excitement surrounding a date.
Lastly, there's a certain way I think which attracts me to the web journal.
kizlj wrote "I don't need to narrate my life." Well, I do. I often find myself narrating life in my head. My internal monologue often switches to that of me describing to an nonexistent listener what I did and how it felt, while I'm doing and feeling those things. Many of these thoughts and lines of thinking die away quickly, the way thoughts do, but many form themselves into concrete words. Conversation never seems to be the best place to bring them up, because conversation is more about give and take. When I talk to someone, I want to know what they are going to say and what new topics will be addressed, leaving behind a wake of half-finished thoughts. Not the place to drop down a somewhat long and personal monologue. So plop they go into the journal.My journal, then, is intended to be a collection of important information about me, trivial information about me and assorted other personal thoughts, screeds and other writings that exhibit my personal outlook on life, directed to relatively intelligent and trustworthy persons who are friends or are otherwise interested in me. It all sounds very egotistical written like that, but I believe my life is interesting enough to dedicate all of my time to living it, so I figure that it's probably interesting enough for other people to spend a small amount of time reading about it.
One of the things that has been brought up in others' thoughts about the form of the web journal is that many people write too vaguely for any outside reader to understand the specifics of his or her life. I know that I am guilty of this, too. The title of this entry is Why. It will be followed shortly hereafter by Who, describing the people in my life and the various pseudonyms they have been assigned; Where, discussing the geography of where I live and my daily life; and What, explaining some of the things that I do quite a lot, including various puzzles and my job. (How doesn't seem appropriate to this conceit, and When is usually answered by the time stamp on each entry.) I hope that all of this goes some way to making my journal easier to understand, and I hope that you, dear reader, continue to give my meager electronic offerings your interest and attention.
Motivation
(Anonymous) 2002-05-04 08:53 am (UTC)(link)Videogames are very important to me; they always have been. They run the gamut from the goofy to the artistic, and from the fun party game to the serious social commentary. As much as I enjoy Interactive Fiction for its own merits, I especially like it in that it suggests that (with time) videogames as a whole have the potential to truly be an artform. However, videogames are also in the public eye, and frequently they are portrayed as a malignant force, corrupting children to violence and leading loners to their asocial demise. It shouldn't be any surprise, then, that there is much and vocal opposition to this idea within the gaming community; debates rage over whether games are "art" or how the medium changes because of shifts in demographics.
As much as I enjoy all this, though, it does nothing to help gaming's public image. That's where my weblog comes into things. Since gaming really is a large part of my life, my friends aren't surprised to find a short review of the New Game X or a comment on News Article Y. Likewise, whenever there's a particularly interesting letters column (http://www.gameforms.com/letters/02/05/l03.html) or a groundbreaking game like ICO (http://www.eblong.com/zarf/gamerev/ico.html) or Rez (http://gamespot.com/gamespot/stories/reviews/0,10867,2838815,00.html), I try to point these things out--especially if my audience includes people who aren't otherwise exposed to videogames. That I keep reading posts like Gunther's (http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=fourcoffees&itemid=9643) saddens me; if I can do anything to educate the public about videogames, I'm going to.
-Ander