A blogger's uncertainty principle

A blog is not a journal..not in the private sense, anyway. I can't go writing down my deepest secrets and desires, and I can't always express everything that's in my head. People are reading along, maybe lots of people from all over my world...both virtual and physical. As long as I am sharing only positive things about other people, I'm okay, but venture into publically wrestling with relationships and watch out!

So what does one do if writing is how you process information? I suggest a private journal in a Word file, or good ole pencil and paper. Not satisfactory? You say you want to share what you've learned and perhaps enlighten others? Then brace yourself for it. Don't do it with a faint heart. You may be justified in laying bare your own soul, but others who might feel exposed by that action aren't going to thank you for it.

People don't want to be object lessons, they don't want to pointed to as the ones who are "left behind" after you've made a great discovery in your own life, and they especially don't want to have been the catalyse for that change if it ends up reflecting poorly on them.

I guess the real problem is that our journeys in life aren't private. Our inward journey might be a private one, but it is worked on by so many outside forces that even there we aren't safe in assuming that sharing our journey won't negatively impact someone else. In science there is a principle called the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. In quantum physics it means that the more precisely you know an object's position, the less percisely you know an object's momentum (and vice versa). The very act of observing the object causes the object to change, making your data obsolete even as it is collected. As we observe other people, how they effect us and how we grow, we also cause ourselves and others to change...our data on ourselves and on those around us is always old data, always obsolete, always in the past. We can only see how we were and predict where we might be going, but rarely can we fix where we are right now.

The people who interacted in my life are changing, too. Maybe not the same way I am, but they don't want to be pigeonholed into the past either. For example, I could share about a friend who emotionally abandoned me...someone I was very close to. (Edited to add: This doesn't address the pain I caused her.. I'm not laying blame here. My actions percipitated the emotional withdrawal on her part.) It was an immensely painful point in my life and the repercussions have caused much growth and change in me. But the person who hurt me back then is still back there in time. The person she is today is different. I've let her be different, and without reference to the past, we've grown close again. She was changed by the experience, I was changed by the experience. It wasn't pleasant but maybe in some way it was necessary for both of us.

Perhaps that why blogging hasn't appealed to me (besides my lousy typing and spelling skills). I know what I write may be obsolete the moment it is written. I'm not good at extolling the beauty of the sunset or discussing the finer points of art or literature. And while I can wax eloquent on my family or even my pets, small talk in print isn't my strong suit. I want to verbalize what inside at the moment, and that can be dangerous and even hurtful to others as my thoughts of the moment lay there in cyberspace forever, perhaps caging those people in and not allowing them to change or grow.

Blogging for me is a tricky business. Perhaps I should just get that digital camera and photoblog; leaving words to the experts.

Carrie