Naked blogging
My own belief is that one regards oneself, if one is a serious writer, as an instrument for experiencing. Life – all of it – flows through this instrument and is distilled through it into works of art. How one lives as a private person is intimately bound into the work. And at some point I believe one has to stop holding back for fear of alienating some imaginary reader or real relative or friend, and come out with personal truth. If we are to understand the human condition, and if we are to accept ourselves in all the complexity, self-doubt, extravagance of feeling, guilt, joy, the slow freeing of the self to its full capacity for action and creation, both as human being and as artist, we have to know all we can about each other, and we have to be willing to go naked.
This text was written in 1973 by May Sarton, a novelist and poet, in her Journal of a Solitude. Even though Sarton was obviously not talking here about blogs but about writing and works of art in general, this paragraph sounds to me like the best justification (not that we need any) for the existence of blogs, especially those of a more personal nature. I do firmly believe that to understand the human condition – a noble goal and the only life goal that truly makes sense to me – we have to know all we can about each other and we have to be willing to go naked. Hey, Karl over at La Grange understood this concept a while ago, but then again he’s always on the cutting edge and he loves to be naked! (Qui aime bien ch�tie bien, cher cousin).
No, it doesn’t mean that every single detail of our daily lives is interesting and that I love to read about what everybody had for breakfast this week. But under the lens of true emotion and with the right perspective, even a slice of bacon can be fascinating.
So I shall keep on going naked on this screen, if only metaphorically…
