"We are not our blogs..." - So says someone in a foray over something recently.
We all put on different faces every day. We play different roles in our lives and assume the corresponding personalities. Some of us go as far as being different people to different people to get what we want. But underneath the various facets of our being, there should be some consistent themes that describes us as a person.
In our daily lives, our various personalities are dictated by the external influences - how we deal with crisis, how we are in the good times as well in times of strife, all mould the personalities apparent to the outside world.
Blogging in itself allows for a free hand in creating one of these facades. We are able to project an image that is almost free from the effects of human interaction. Our blogs are our own private soapbox - we and we alone dictate how much interaction we wish to have with our audience, how much we want to share and what elements of ourselves we wish to expose.
It's not surprising that after bloggers meet each other in meatspace that comments like "he's not at all like his blog" starts to come out. True, that one or two encounters does not make a best friend, but the inconsistencies can become quite apparent.
This brings me to wonder about the intentions (subconscious or intended) of bloggers when they choose to publish the "Daily Me". For some, blogging is a way for them to explore themselves and track their personal growth. For others, it's a form of escapism, a way to perhaps be someone you want to be, and not quite the person that you are.
Either way, both methods, whether or not you blog as yourself or as someone you wished you were, expose the true person that you are inside. The more we explore the facets of a person, the better our understanding is of what makes that person tick.
Perhaps we shouldn't judge a blog by it's cover?
Posted by Najah Nasseri at 2003年12月15日 00:13 | TrackBack
i believe, to blog is to express ourselves inside out by the means of sincerity. and the blog we own act as a representation of reflection to our personality. appearences are seldomly sincere and can always be deceiving..
true. we shouldn't judge a blog by its cover... just like we shouldn't judge a person's by his/her writings. one can write very well and seems active and socialble in writing but in person s/he may be as quiet as a church-mouse. i know... because that is me... though of course i'm not close to being quiet as church-mouse... just quiet. i express myself much better in writing than in person, therefore in writing i can 'talk' a lot but in person, i tend to be rather quiet, as a bit shy to express myself.
blogging gives oppoturnity, esp. to people like me, to express ourselves, like what believe, said above, by the means of sincerity, and what we blog on usually, yes right, believe, 'act as a representation of reflection to our personality.'
just as we believe each person is unique, each blog is unique.
Posted by: lucia at 2003年12月15日 12:18We may have many faces(topeng2 kehidupan) but there is only one heart.
Posted by: Pak Adib at 2003年12月15日 15:06Funny when you mentioned that 'blogging is a way for them to explore themselves and track their personal growth',because I never see it that way,although in retrospect, it can be seen as such, especially after reading some of my earlier blog entries.
As for me, I think of my blog as a cheap substitute to a shrink :D
Posted by: asmadi at 2003年12月16日 05:48It reminds me of Natalie Goldberg's comment that "you are not your writing"!
We are and we are not. I see blogs as a means of capturing snapshots of your thoughts, your emotional state, events that you feel are important enough to blog about - at specific moments of time. We are all fluid beings, but the blog posts - like photos of ourselves - are there to remind us of how we were, what we thought and how we felt.
I also agree with Lucia - blogs give verbally non-expressive people a chance to let themselves out...:-)
Posted by: Zsarina at 2003年12月16日 13:00well said zsarina.
it's up to the writer to choose whether to blog as his honest self or whom he sees himself as.
a blog as expression of ideas and feelings reflects the writer. it is easy for people to be judgemental and conclusive about one's writings, other than looks, speech etc.
Posted by: pickyin at 2003年12月16日 13:15I agree with asmadi, the blog is definitely a shrink substitute ~ it feels like that
Posted by: Marilyn at 2003年12月17日 13:18I think that the issue of inconsistencies between cyber and real world has been brought up so many times already, most notably with chatting and now blogging. It's hard NOT to form an impression of someone just by reading about them. But then it is understandable as you create the image based on YOUR perception of the things that are being written. So your perception and another person's perception on the blogger might differ totally while another might just hit the spot.
However, I do find that reading my friends' blogs helps me get to know my friends better. There are things that are better expressed in writing and there are thoughts that couldn't be verbalized. Blogs provide these outlets and give you a chance to discover another facet of your friends.
Posted by: hunny at 2003年12月18日 09:29People who've been married for a long time may not completely understand each other, what more if we just read someone's blog. We just get a glimpse of what the bloggers choose to expose to us.It could be real, it could be imagination or it could be wishful thinking.
Posted by: nectar at 2003年12月22日 08:58I have to agree that blogging is indeed a snapshot of self at any particular point of time. Thing is, individuals are a lot more complicated than they appear. Their writings however, exert a small window to their true self. Even if the writing is fiction, that's an expression in itself.
Posted by: Arysa Aida at 2004年07月07日 11:40