to blog or not to blog

That is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune...or to take up a keyboard, and by so opposing, divulge them. I've been casting around other people's blogs for a while now, and I've seen some pretty heavy stuff. And by "heavy" I mean very weighty, very personal matters. Stuff that you'd ordinarily think somebody would want to keep quiet. I stumbled upon this one blog once that dealt with nothing but the writer's sex life. The post I read was a meticulous 2,000-word treatise on the events leading up to her and her boyfriend's first attempt at anal sex. I'm not sure what good that kind of post does anybody, but that's not what I'm here to talk about. Being a blogger is kind of like being the editor of the coolest, wackiest newspaper ever written. It's all about YOU. It's anything you want. You, and you alone, decide what gets put onto the front page. Complete control over the whole process, that's what you've got: topic, writing, tone, voice, stance, revision, publishing, the works. The final slash-and-burn is the kicker. That's where you sit back, look at what you've written, and think to yourself, "Okay, is this worth putting up?" A few bloggers are shallow and uninteresting, writing without depth or merit. A large number of bloggers, on the other hand, are honest. They pour out their hearts and souls onto the web page. They speak on highly personal issues, things near and dear to their hearts, private matters that they perhaps would never have dared to bare in person. Sometimes this writing is brutally honest and gruesomely detailed. Oftentimes, even if the subject matter is not something a reader would ordinarily find interesting, the way in which its presented can win an audience over...if the blogger tells the truth and write from the heart. Quite often, however, the subject matter is both relevant and truthful. The result is something incredible: something deep, something resonant, something emotionally powerful. Reading these blog posts (about a dear friend who passed away, or a violent crime that the writer was a victim of, or even a beloved place or time) is cathartic. We feel transported to that place, introduced to that person, victimized by that crime. We feel like a bridge has been built between our soul and the writer's. Reading becomes a joining of hands, a meeting of minds. I have experienced this amazing sensation several times on the blogsphere, and never expected to. That, friends, is perhaps what this whole blogging gig is about. But I'll skip the commercial. This is not the point of this post. The point is this: there's a difference between being honest and truthful when writing, and using some...discretion. Not everything one does is newsworthy, no matter how exciting one's life may be. At some point, a blogger must draw the line at even the most brutal or hilarious details of his or her existence. But where should that line be drawn? At what point does a blogger cease being honest and truthful and is instead merely airing his dirty laundry in public? Being honest, truthful, open, or gut-wrenchingly detailed in your writing (or just writing about personal matters) is one thing. Using the blogsphere as a confessional is another. This is the crux of my argument. Be honest, sure. Be truthful, yes. Be gritty, even. But don't write about things that happened to you because you feel as if you'd be hiding the truth otherwise. Don't bare your soul just because you feel you need to be totally, unreservedly honest. Don't include all the gory details just for the audience's information. If you are doing it, make sure you're doing it for YOU. You're the editor, remember? There's two things that very recently happened to me that I was going to blog about. I was going to blog about them enthusiastically, in fact. But I'm not going to now. I can't write about the first thing because I might get somebody else in trouble. I can't write about the second because...well, it's a highly embarrassing, personal matter, and I think I'd rather keep it private. I'm entitled to a little privacy, after all. Be wary that you don't fall into the same trap. Write about what you want to write about, but don't compromise your privacy. Goodness knows it's hard enough to hold on to any privacy in this day and age anyway. Write by all means, just ensure that you're not doing it to assuage your insecurities. Do it to give yourself wings.