Thoughts on the livejournal process and my recent visit to CA
I thought I’d throw out one more thought while I had it, even though it means that my journal entries are a few minutes apart, which makes it appear that I have no life. [Well, that’s probebly actually true, I probebly have no life. But, hey..]
I’ve been studying the dynamics of how keeping a journal – and a publicly readable one at that – affects my life. The first thing I’ve noticed is that keeping a journal at all is a very useful thing – it helps me focus my thoughts, and develop threads over a long period of time – by going back and skimming entries I made earlier, I can see if my thoughts were well explained, and if not explain them better – and I can also see if I still agree with myself two weeks down the road.
However, I kind of wonder about the publicly accessable nature. There are a lot of things that I think about that I don’t write down because I know people will be reading this – secrets that I have to keep, ideas that I wouldn’t want others to develop, all sorts of things along that vein.
On the other hand, knowing that others are or someday might be reading what I’m typing does tend to make me form my thoughts better, and word them better, and voice my opinions more clearly and consider the other sides that will be presented as I’m voicing them.
It also, of course, means that I have a slight titch of paranoia that some of my more unpopular ideas will attract the attention of the powers that be, which could have very interesting rammifcations.
To a certain extent, I guess I shouldn’t worry – I write so many things that are publicly published that I don’t feel I should have any fear to speak of that anyone will ever take the time to read them all – but then again, there’s also always the risk that some small peice of them will be read out of context.
I hope to continue to find time to update this as I grow and change, so that eventually I can read back over my entire life history. One of the things I firmly beleive is that both youth and age have their advantages, and both are neccesary to a successful speices as a whole. I hope that as I grow older, I don’t become convinced that the ‘radical’ ideas the younger people are having [and I’m sure they will] are evil, wrong, and bad.
I am to a certain extent guilty of this in the musical arena – I have a very hard time enjoying gangsta rap as they talk about bitch-slappen’ their hos and capping their enemies [I’m sure I screwed that up somehow, but oh well] because I find this message to be very negative and I don’t really like to listen to music that is very negative – because I feel that whatever music I listen to programs and shapes me. But I also have to wonder to what extent I dislike the music [and the music of bands like Korn] just because it’s something that came into fashon after my tastes in music had carmalized [to whatever extent that they have – which isn’t clear, I keep finding new types of music and new peices that I like to this day – though I admit it isn’t as frequent as it once was]
Anyway, to return to my topic thread, I do think that keeping a journal is helpful to my development as a person – and I’d like to think that at least a small percentage of my ramblings will be useful to other people like me who are likewise trying to figure out the world. But I don’t know.
Anyway, I’d better go take a shower and get ready to fly out. Unfortunately looks like I won’t be able to find anyone to share my last meal in CA – tried a few people, but everyone’s either at work (on a saturday – isn’t the modern economy great?) or out with far more interesting people than me ;-). So I think I’ll just hit up mcdonalds in the airport.
Had a great visit in southern california – a wonderful time, wonderful weather [but isn’t it always], saw the friends who are most important to me [except for CM, but he’s always at work these days, making up for the long stretch of unemployment he just experienced I imagine], laughed more than I have in six months [I’ll have to tell a few of the funnier stories later, with the names changed of course], and in general it has been a high point in my recent life. I go home refreshed, happy – a little confused/conflicted about a few things that I can’t really talk about, but for the most part feeling better about myself and the world around me than I have for a while.
In general, it’s been a wonderful visit, and financially lucrative, but now it’s time to get back to the ‘real’ work that doesn’t pay nearly as much. 😉
Actually, there are two possible projects in the offing that may require a return, and pay – and I will keep my fingers crossed that one or both goes through. Not only could I use the money, I could _definately_ do with some more time in the big CA.
I think at some point I’m going to have to admit that I really secretly love california. All of it – from the southernmost to the northernmost – there’s just something about it that I like. City of dreams.
I really like the culture in seattle, too – but the weather _sucks_. It’s not the rain that bugs me, it’s the fact that it’s always cold. It was (on april 18th) 36 degrees when I flew out. That’s too effen’ cold for my tastes.
Well, enough babbling for now, I’d better return to my regularly scheduled life.
S.