(no subject)

[krail]

I feel like I probably talk about the same things over and over on here lately (lately being over a course of a couple years now). I feel like this is probably a bad sign. Perhaps an obvious indication of the very stagnation I've been repeatedly complaining about.

I really miss LJ, yet I kinda feel like it can't be what it was in the past...

I used to spend a lot of time writing these entries. I'd sit at the computer for hours, juggling an entire essay in my head, distracting myself with the internet, trying to crank out the next sentence. Many of my posts took me a week or more to write. Oftentimes I'd just open the page and leave it open all day before I finally started actually writing something around dinnertime. Today is no exception.

Now I stop and think, man, how did I ever have that kind of time? It's not just work and responsibilities getting in the way. It's social pressures as well. And it's a vastly shortened attention span. Really, I feel like my attention span has just fallen to pieces lately.


I don't know... I have a lot to say, but I feel like I have a harder time saying it. I feel like... I've kinda learned and grown embarrassed by how big of an outspoken dork I used to be, but instead of learning not to be such a dork I just learned to stop talking.

I've had a lot of life experiences in the two or three years since I posted regularly. Since everyone kinda stopped doing the LJ thing and so posting to LJ didn't mean anything for my social life anymore (At least, the friends I was closest with and enjoyed sharing with the most don't post anymore). Part of the appeal of LJ was that it was kind of a social thing. It was the perfect medium for me to express myself because it allowed me to talk to people at my own pace without thinking about it too much where thinking about things too much improved the quality of communication instead of detracting from it.  I occasionally make stumbling attempts to use Facebook in a similar manner, but... I just can't be as intimate or candid there.  It's too public and too short-form.  And a straightforward personal blog puts too much of the spotlight on me.  It's a responsibility to maintain.  It's not a community, and it's also too public for a lot of what I want to say.  (maybe I could stand to speak my introspection a little more publicly.)

I have a lot of issues to work out, and this has been the most effective source of therapy in the years.  But... it's gotten awkward when so many of the problems to work out involve the very people reading this.  I've said a few things I shouldn't have on this journal, and I think that sort of embarrassed me out of posting for a while...


Anyway....  I kind of need this.  I want to try writing more again. I need to work these thoughts out of my head again, even if the people I want to talk to most don't even read it anymore.
I need to learn to write more efficiently, and spend less time staring into space.  I hope I can condense the time a little and still maintain the same level of elegance and introspection.  I feel like this post was still kind of a thought-vomit.

I kinda wonder now... why did everyone else stop posting here?  Did Facebook usurp blogging communities like LJ?  Is it just that life's responsibilities get in the way?  Does the appeal of updating our lives online like this just start to dwindle as we get older?

Comments

[lifesnotasong]

I stopped writing, because... I don't fully know why. Because some people on my access list have too much history with me to be deleted, but aren't people I really want to share with anymore. Because some of the people I most want to share my thoughts with don't read here anymore, so I focus my attention to sharing with them in other ways. Because I can get those bursts of "gahhh need to get this off my chest" in less revealing ways via twitter or facebook or tumblr or reddit or ______. Because I have a slightly more mature understanding that anything I write may well be found by future employers/lovers/who-knows-who. Because I get busy with a million little things, have less free time, and prioritize other things now. Because when I have time, I choose to escape my mind for a while instead of delving deeper into it, more often than not. Because because because.

Oh look, I can thought-vomit too ;)

♥ jess

[krail]

Yeah... I think lack of fine-tuned control of who's reading is part of the problem... And even when I can control who reads I feel a bit guilty for it. Part of what gives me the courage to write about this is not having to worry about picking and choosing who sees it, if that makes any sense.

I think that I never really found a suitable replacement for my LJ. My lack of writing kind of came along with moving away from and... changing relationships with all the people that used to be my closest confidants. Let's just say I've got an LJ post brewing about the sense of isolation and loneliness I've had since Willamette.

I'd like to say that writing like this is part of what keeps me from delving deeper into my mind and allows me some escape. That's not exactly it... It's more like... I get knots. I can think myself in circles. I can distract myself from my problems but that doesn't change the fact that they're still there, weighing on things, tangled up in everything. Talking out or writing out my problems like this is like carefully untying those knots so that things can flow freely again. (Maybe sometimes it's not so much like untying as it is just mapping them out so I know which way to turn)

The whole web privacy issue is... certainly an issue, and I'm never quite sure what to think. I guess, ideally I'd like to just be okay with sharing everything. It's funny, I really do hide so much of myself, often more than I even realize (and I'm pretty bad at expressing my feelings), I think it surprises people when I'm suddenly open and candid about stuff.
I think that... as an artist, I really want to be open and expressive about my inner self, you know? I think that's a really important part of what art is. Lots of artists talk about how making art is like putting a piece of yourself out there; how if you don't feel kind of exposed when the piece is shown then you haven't made art. Kiki Smith (an artist I like) said in an interview that she sees her works as sort of like her little soldiers out in the world. I feel like if I can achieve that sense of something revealing and true to my heart in my creative endeavors then I won't feel so awkward and pretentious about calling myself an artist.

[ossobuco]

I'm trying to journal every now and again, but often I just feel like I don't have anything to say. My entries lately are basically lists of stuff I've done, but without the emotional processing I used to do, and I... don't really know why that is. I may be disassociating somewhat as a way of coping with stress, or I may not feel the need to verbally (/textually) address my feelings that way anymore?

Probably one of the biggest reasons is just that many of my friends are elsewhere. Tumblr, mostly, is where I share fandom feelings (and it is easier to find people there, for sure, though it's harder to have proper interactions), and even a lot of day-to-day stuff. I feel like I babble in small doses there and thus don't feel the need to make one long statement at the end of the day.

I miss having a journaling community because it felt like more in-depth communication. You couldn't just "like" a thing, for instance. And I miss knowing more about people's feelings and more about the stories they feel like telling about themselves, not the pithy status updates and .gifs. Not that those can't be enjoyable/appreciable, they're just... different.

p.s. Do you know how to make custom friends groups? If you want to ramble about a thing to some people, but not to everyone on your friends list, they're helpful. I use them now and then.