TMI?

(Too Much Information?)

When it comes to blogging, how much is too much?

Some people treat their blog as an online journal, a place to be able to write and express their personal thoughts and feelings, frustrations and grief. Others use their blog to share trips, recipes, renovations or crafting.

I like to think that my little blog is a bit of all of the above, but it tends to lean more towards the sharing of “impersonal” things. Home projects and crafty show-and-tells. Recipes, funny antidotes or just plain ‘ole poking fun at myself. I don’t use real names when I blog about the people in my life. (That being said, if you are in my life and read my words, then most of the time you know who I am talking about.)

I’m sure that if you dug around enough, you could find out my last name or my home town, but I think that when I blog, I make a conscious effort to keep my personal “business” out of the "World Wide Webs business."

I wrote faithfully in a journal, from the time that I was in grade six until I graduated high school. Some of the most influential, hormonal, educational, experimental, roller coaster years that a person goes through in that stage of life, have been jotted down and time capsuled in pastel colored gel pens. Ten or eleven journals, full of thoughts, feelings and questions. Elastic bands wrapped around some of them because they are so stuffed with pictures and love notes, song lyrics and poems. Some pages are unreadable due to the ink smearing from adolescent tears. Every few years, I get nostalgic and go back a read through them. I do a lot of eye rolling at my younger self, giggling at being so naïve and insecure. Sometimes I even get teary eyed all over again when I wrote about the inevitable bads that happen in life.

Some girlfriends of mine in school kept journals too…and burned them because they found that younger transparency to be too pathetic or maybe too real to want to reread. Even the thought of losing my journals devastates me because I never want to lose that “younger me” perspective.

The reason I write this today? Well there are some days that I wish that my blog was more of a journal. “I’m having a rotten ass day and I want to vent my little fingers off”…or “I’m having a moment of woes-is-me and I want to have a written verbal pity party for myself.” I wish this because I have this outlet and little cyber world and lets be honest, everyone has those moments.

The thing about that though is that once you put words into the Great Wide Internet World, they are there forever. There is no taking them back.

I have seen this negative repercussion happen, where words have been taken out of context, misconstrued or the writer wasn't quite able to articulate everything clearly to the reader. Or to be honest, the person probably should never have written what they did.

And I’m not even talking on a personal level “I have seen this”, so much as when you scroll down and read comments on strangers blogs, who have comments made by other readers who are strangers to them. These online trolls who get belligerent when they disagree with the writer or feel that they need to belittle or reproach a persons personal thoughts.

We have also all heard about the horrible backlash on social media from words put on there in anger or frustration. We have all watched the news and gasped in heartbreak over the stories of pictures put on the Internet and how the victims, unable to deal with the bullying, have responded in horrific ways.

Once it’s posted online, there is no backspace.

One of the biggest challenges of “Personal Blogging” for me is that it’s hard to always get across tone of voice in written words. I have written emails to colleagues and had to re-read them a number of times (or have others read them) to make sure that they tone isn't sarcastic or demeaning. In fact, I have re-read this posting a few times just to make sure I’m being clear (in what is obviously a very rambling post!).

So here is the question I think as I write this today: how much is too much?

If you want have the freedom to be real and honest, why not just grab a pen and a pad of paper? Or open up a Word document? What is it with this need to share the pity party with “others”, even though you may never know who those “others” are? Is it the need to know that you’re not alone? “That exact same thing has happened to me!” a reader may comment on your post. Is it a therapy of “better out than in”? Get if off you chest? 

Or is it this deeper narcissistic need that we as humans need/want to fulfill? Are we looking for validation for our actions and feelings? Or are we seeking compassion from others? In this technologically impersonal and disconnected world, why are we so willing to throw caution into the wind and put it all out there? Is it so that we may feel connected?

Should a blog just be good things happening? A World Wide Brag book, where it turns into “Look at me and all the great things that I have done!’? Do you just stick to generalized things and impersonal notes?

Food for thought…or just too heavy on a rainy Sunday afternoon??

Cheers!