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Jun. 12th, 2001 02:20 amJust a note to journallers all over the web.
I took an entry down here once, as some of you might remember. I did it for the sake of peace and hoping to soothe someone else's rage. It brought no peace, it soothed no rage, and it made me feel tired and beaten and surpressed. Since then, I've moved all the important stuff here. I'm going to tell you that I will never do that again.
Journals are personal things, by and large, and many people choose to write in them whatever they are feeling and thinking. People feel and think things that hurt others or offend others, or make others uncomfortable every minute of every hour of every day. It's a fact of life. But a real journal is a work of honesty, and online journals are works of bravery as well. I would never request that anyone remove entries from their journal, or edit the content of future entries to make me comfortable.
Because people all over the world do a lot of things here. Some people write so that their friends or relatives will know what's going on in their lives. Some people write because they have things that they need to figure out. Some people write here with the express intent of communicating with others. Some people are writing here because there's shit that they're carrying around that is just too fucking heavy, and this is a nice place to set it down for five minutes. But the fact of the matter is, people here are writing their stories online. Each entry is a page from a story of some beautifully unique and strange person. And tearing those pages out of the book until everything's "okay"... that removes the beauty, the strangeness, from each story until we all start looking alike. And that's... terrible. It's a crime. It's cowardly to expect others to limit your informational intake for you... that's your job. Unless, of course, you're a child. In which case, your parents should be leaning over your shoulder while you surf.
When you read something that makes you uncomfortable, don't shut your eyes and run. Savor it. Turn it around and around and around in your mind and figure out what it is and where it came from and what it's made of. Because while we are each and every one of us very different people, it is by learning about each other in whatever way we can that benefits us the most... it gives us a chance to learn about ourselves as well. And as I've said before, self-knowledge is the only path to happiness and to understanding all the externals.
I took an entry down here once, as some of you might remember. I did it for the sake of peace and hoping to soothe someone else's rage. It brought no peace, it soothed no rage, and it made me feel tired and beaten and surpressed. Since then, I've moved all the important stuff here. I'm going to tell you that I will never do that again.
Journals are personal things, by and large, and many people choose to write in them whatever they are feeling and thinking. People feel and think things that hurt others or offend others, or make others uncomfortable every minute of every hour of every day. It's a fact of life. But a real journal is a work of honesty, and online journals are works of bravery as well. I would never request that anyone remove entries from their journal, or edit the content of future entries to make me comfortable.
Because people all over the world do a lot of things here. Some people write so that their friends or relatives will know what's going on in their lives. Some people write because they have things that they need to figure out. Some people write here with the express intent of communicating with others. Some people are writing here because there's shit that they're carrying around that is just too fucking heavy, and this is a nice place to set it down for five minutes. But the fact of the matter is, people here are writing their stories online. Each entry is a page from a story of some beautifully unique and strange person. And tearing those pages out of the book until everything's "okay"... that removes the beauty, the strangeness, from each story until we all start looking alike. And that's... terrible. It's a crime. It's cowardly to expect others to limit your informational intake for you... that's your job. Unless, of course, you're a child. In which case, your parents should be leaning over your shoulder while you surf.
When you read something that makes you uncomfortable, don't shut your eyes and run. Savor it. Turn it around and around and around in your mind and figure out what it is and where it came from and what it's made of. Because while we are each and every one of us very different people, it is by learning about each other in whatever way we can that benefits us the most... it gives us a chance to learn about ourselves as well. And as I've said before, self-knowledge is the only path to happiness and to understanding all the externals.
