What happens when this public blog becomes private? For those of you who have blogs of your own or even post personal details of your life through various social media platforms, I wonder how you view privacy in this public domain. I was recently contacted by a family member that I have not spoken to in years…turns out she has been reading my blog! Is blogging now a tool for families that have lost their way? I wonder how it looks from the outside, and I think of the phrase “airing my dirty laundry”. I suppose after so many years of “worrying” what people think, I invite people to participate in my world of discovery. I do my best to speak the truth without judging it or anyone involved. Of course, some days I do this better than others (that’s just my human side showing through). I wonder if some wounds will ever heal, or if we will be trapped in this dead-end of blame and misinterpretation.

the pain to stay the same must be greater than the pain to change

Chris & Kari

simply looking forward

This entry was posted on Monday, July 21st, 2008 at 1:57 pm and is filed under acceptance, family, life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Through the Looking Glass”

Doug McCaughan Says:

I love that blogs help connect families. My family doesn’t understand my lifestyle but now has a window into it and hopefully understands better now.

I have been having a difficult time getting my children to publish on their blogs. Naturally they want to lean toward the Facebook, and MySpace crap. My daughter finally became interested in her blog and my mother commented on it which killed it for my girl, “I don’t want my grandmother reading this!” In that case, my mother should have stayed in the shadows.

As for “airing the dirty laundry,” I’ve beat that one around a bunch. I’m sure my blog hurt my interviewing when I took a swing at getting back into the corporate world. And I was raised that we must present ourselves correctly, and that image was important. But I am who I am. And I’d rather let people see me than some contrived pseudo me. I probably don’t want to hang out with those who choose to disassociate themselves from me because of judgments based upon my writings anyway.

The problem with blogging a transparent life is that even with “utter transparency” we cannot reveal everything. There is not time! And everything is not appropriate. As much as I would like to blog about my finances, I cannot see that as “appropriate.” Readers make the poor assumption that everything they read is 1) truth and not embellished and 2) is everything! Unfortunately, blogging is but a small glimpse into a complex life. I feel that readers are too quick to judge based on that sliver of observation. But honestly, I’m good with that. Hopefully when they meet me in real life they’ll give me a chance to know the whole person.

I’ve written about this topic in why I blog and Employers READ ME.

Parker Says:

Nice picture. Privacy is one of the logics behind my audio only stance, but it’s a tricky question. I can’t help but think that being honest and open can only be to the good and illuminates the real and accurate world to people. Still … I don’t know.

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