So, why have I been so reluctant to write a blog? In part because, I'm a extremely private person (more than most people think). In general I don't share my personal feelings very often nor do I share my personal problems. The result, particularly in the professional arena (I think), is that I come off a bit brisk and inflexible -- which isn't helped by the fact that I have one of those voices that carries (seriously I think my whispers can be heard miles away) -- when I'm in the office. A former colleague (we had a mutual dislike of each other) and I attended a social even thrown by a vendor. She later told our boss that she was surprised by my behavior -- in the office I'm all business, but outside of work I was relaxed, open, and fun. Go figure.
Similarly with the rise of the internet people have a tendency to misinterpret things. Facebook and Twitter epitomize this. For example, if I were to write an update on one of those platforms saying that I was dancing naked to Iggy Pop's I Wanna Be Your Dog (great song, by the way), while I would definitely be listening to Iggy Pop, and there's a good chance that I would be dancing, I would only be dancing naked in my mind. Also, I incredibly bad at proofreading my own writing. Seriously, put something in front of me that another person has written, I'll find all of the grammatical mistakes, typos, and problems in terms of the argument, but I'm just horrible at doing that to my own work. It's a major fault, I know, but I'm smart enough to ask others to proofread what I've written just to make sure there aren't any problems.
Most importantly, I've always felt that once you put something in writing it suddenly becomes real (or more real). Professionally, things need to be in writing and that's great, but when it comes to your personal life I'm not so sure I want to allow others to interpret my feelings. For example, a few years ago a colleague and I sat down to discuss some things, at the end of the meeting he said, "I'll write this up and we can give it to our boss." I told him that I wasn't comfortable with that just yet, so we should wait until we'd met with our supervisor and then we could write things up. Sadly, when we met with our supervisor he had gone ahead and written everything up. Needless to say I was caught completely off guard and rather angry (particularly since some of the things weren't true). Obviously we worked through it, but still...
If I have such an abhorrence to sharing my personal thoughts and feelings in writing, why am I writing this? First, because so many people that I greatly respect use blogs as sort of a writer's warm up before sitting down to a day's writing. I'm hoping that blogging (particularly first thing in the morning) will loosen me up for a day's worth of dissertation writing. Second, because once again I've been given the opportunity to live in this amazing cabin for the next six months, so this is a finite experience. If I like it, perhaps I will continue with something else, but who knows.
I think the primary reason though, is because I'm really trying to make some positive changes in my life. As I said, I'm not particularly open about my personal thoughts and feelings. Part of this is because I love to observe people (Baudelaire's The Painter of Modern Life is one of my favorite essays), but more so because I'm more introverted that most people realize. The result, friends have told me, is that I have a tendency to make a bad first impression. I need to change that and hopefully this will help.
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