The Public and the Private

The statistic on blogs is staggering. With the hundreds of millions of blogs out there, most people subscribe to a blog, know someone who writes a blog, or god forbid, they themselves write a blog. While I think that the proliferation of venues of expression is an overall positive thing, I do simultaneously think that many have become oblivious to the purpose and audience to which they are writing. In more concrete terms, I want to stress the importance of public versus private writing.

If an idea doesn't make sense to be made public, for one reason another, it doesn't mean that it shouldn't be put into words. I, and many others far more influential and learned than myself, believe firmly that writing is a way of crystalizing, vocalizing, and remembering one's thoughts and realizations. These virtues alone make writing undeniably and unequivocally important. Something that shouldn't be posted on a public blog, then, is quite simply a private thought.

Considering that public media platforms, Twitter, Facebook, and the like, are all the rage, writing for yourself and yourself only may sound almost outrageous. But all it means is that we're taking a small step back to the olden days when in fact most of our thoughts were to and for ourselves. I think a lot of us may have forgotten what it was like to keep a physical, personal diary. Private writing is a choice that is now often forgotten, but one that shouldn't be. There are limitations to what can be said publicly; our thoughts would become stifled and malformed if we cannot exercise the full breadth of possible thought.

Any thought by nature has and should be written up, if you so choose. But after putting the first messy draft together, we should take a step back and ask ourselves, "What would be the purpose of making this public?" If we can't come up with a strong, legitimate answer, it probably means that the words should be kept private. If written on a computer, this just means that you'll have a place in your HDD where you'll keep such personal musings.

I personally think that writing with a physical pen and a physical diary is a meditative and soothing experience. Overall, it has given me more positive effects than a screen and keyboard. But then again, these days the vast majority of my writing is done electronically, primarily for the convenience that is the alacrity with which I'm able to put letters together. Getting the words out is the primary goal; any additional improvements can and should be considered later.

As a personal example, I wrote a 1500+ word braindump last night, that I won't ever make public. But I will freely admit that it was a therapeutic experience. Perhaps more importantly, the act of writing my thoughts have condensed and inscribed the concepts into my brain. This is invaluable, considering the statistic that humans only retain 3% of what goes through our consciousness.

It's an increasingly public world, but in spite of this, or perhaps because of this, there is a need for a private world within the world at large. When these two worlds collide, or when we become unaware of the distinction, problems arise.

I still believe that all my online characters can be merged into one. I have some concerns, but the overall concept is one that I still have faith in. However, it didn't occur to me until recently that there still needs to be a place of expression for the private self, where the truest of my thoughts lie. There is a distinct line between the private and the public that we must be aware of.

Anything that leaves the firm grasp of our control, anything that sees a second pair of eyes, is public. Having a clear distinction of which side of this line we stand at any given time, is an ever more important aspect of self-awareness that we must incessantly exercise, in our increasingly public world.