Reasons for not having a typical livejournal/blog
I have for many years gone on about how I should never have a livejournal/blog. At the same time I keep coming across things that I would like to do with one. I have finally decided to succumb, but to avoid the "typical" livejournal/blog stuff that I think would be a Bad Thing in my case.
- Journal of events. My life simply isn't that interesting, there'd be like 3 notable things a year.
- Socialising- I don't get much emotional fulfillment from online interactions that aren't one-on-one (And even then would prefer real life ones) If I use up my anecdotes etc online I'll have less to say in person which would ultimately lead to loneliness. Bad.
- Getting things of your chest- Either I can talk about it to someone in real life, or I shouldn't be putting it on the internet. Anything I feel uncomfortable saying to someone I'd probably feel uncomfortable knowing they'd read on my blog.
- talking about myself- I do this enough already! Not to say I won't do it here :)
Reasons I still probably shouldn't have a livejournal
- I'm tactless and have occasional alarming lapses of judgment. I'm also pretty bad at expressing myself. All this results in me deciding to say something I probably shouldn't, accidentally saying something different, and doing so in the worst possible way. This is a general problem with me and communication but the more people read/hear something I say the more likely I horribly offend someone, especially in a medium like this where it's so easy to forget exactly how large your possible audience is. Still, I've sort of got the hang of mailing lists/internet fora etc and this shouldn't be that much worse. Consider yourself warned, though. I HOPE to force myself to wait 24 hours before posting. We shall see.
- Man, do I love talking about myself. This is going to be soooooo boring. But hey, noones forcing you to read it :)
- I have this irritating tendency to write in numbered lists and bullet points after 3 years of doing a Phd in computational mathematics.
Past Flip-Flops
To the people to whom I have loudly railed against the possibilty of me ever getting a livejournal/blog, I can only say this: I am a big fat liar. It is actually not uncommon for me to loudly proclaim an opinion then all of a sudden change my mind quite radically. Some examples:
- Being atheist is stupid
- Vegetarianism is irredeemably stupid
- Vegetarianism is the clearly more moral than eating meat.(My views now are more complex)
- I am not going to do honours
- I am not going to do a phd
- Never go out with a unisfan
- Rock/popular music sucks (No, not just some of it. ALL of it)
- I'm never going to have children.(No, I haven't done this yet! But I intend to, one day)
The thing is in retrospect I can generally understand my reasons for having the opinion, at least to start with. Once I start to doubt the opinion I'm thinking about it a lot, and when I'm thinking about something I talk about it. So I say the opinion even more, until I decide I don't agree any more at which point I stop!
Uses for this blog
Things I would go around telling every person I bumped into except they'd get annoyed. Things I'm going around telling everyone anyway. Ideas, things that happen to me etc
Those 3 interesting life events a year.(
For example...)
Little rants, questions etc that would be off topic and selfish to bring up in most conversations or mailing lists, but might be of interest to anyone foolish enough to go to a site devoted entirely to me.
The Golden Rule for things I put online
"Put unto internet that which you would have others put unto the internet"
This allows for a lot of weird personal obsessions like
cheap stained glass substitutes but generally helps keep down things like me going on about how much I like radiohead. I shall try hard to apply that rule here.
Why I decided to succumb
The main thing I think was a number of my close friends getting them, so that I actually read some other than ones like
Angriest which I'm just not going to be able to write, or random ones when I'm bored. It means I have an audience, I'd feel pretty weird writing and knowing none of my friends would read it.
Also I kept coming up with genuine things to put in one that obey The Golden Rule. Like site updates and questions I'd like peoples opinions on and stuff.
So there you go!
