Filters, Redux

Last night i was engaged in a great conversation with a friend, and about half way through I paused and said, “it’s a shame we’re not recording this, it would make a great podcast”. Now, we’re both bloggers and podcasters and it was on topic for the things we write about — in fact, it sprung from a blog post he’d just written — but it also startled me that here in 2009, potentially everything is media fodder. It took me aback that I’d suggested such a thing so easily; everything is potentially content.

An ongoing battle I’ve had, ever since I started writing online in 1996, is how much of my life do I write about? Where’s the edge? I’ve written about being affected by depression, because i’m not ashamed of it and if you’re not personally affected by it you likely know someone who is. It’s not something that I feel should be stigmatized, so I write about it. I’ve written about being in chronic pain, because that’s just reality. writing about it helped me work through things, until I was functional again. I’ve written that I’m getting divorced, but not really about the divorce, not because it’s too personal but because there’s another person involved. Obviously I don’t write about days jobs, because too many employers have had negative reactions to that sort of thing; i won’t even hint at who I’m employed by anywhere on the internet, except in private emails. I don’t talk about my freelancing clients unless they pay me to, because that’s a value-added service. But on a personal level, there’s been very little I won’t discuss. Until now.

Yes, I finally hit a topic that I won’t write about. I’m not here to tease you with it; I’m writing about it because I don’t quite understand why I won’t write about it. This is “meta” woolgathering. Is it because I’m not entirely comfortable with the subject? Is it because I’m actually afraid of peoples’ reactions to the subject? Is it because I suddenly recognize a boundary, that there’s something that just plain isn’t anyone else’s business?  I don’t know. I will say that I haven’t even told most of my “real life” friends about it. And, let me assure you, it’s nothing anyone should worry about. It’s just… odd, that this is my own thing, kept to myself.

Of course, that’s probably the answer. I live a very public life, here on the internet. I’m a bit internet-famous, for what it’s worth. I’m crashing with a friend. I don’t have the same levels of privacy that I once had. I also own no more than what fit into my car. Most of what I “own” are ideas and virtual real estate. I think that I’ve carved out this little pocket of “mine” and I’ve chosen not to blog about it because I don’t want to share, I want something that’s all mine and completely private. With everything I’ve been through in the past several months, I think it’s actually some sort of coping mechanism.

Okay, another over-analysis. Thanks for listening while I talked that out and got my head around it.