Blah, Blah, Blahg...

A blog on blogging.  I suppose all bloggers, at one time or another, succumb to this dangling carrot, so why not me?  After all, according to my subtitle I'm supposed to be exploring the subject of "liberty," and I do hate to be accused of impertinent subtitles.

In a recent conversation with one of my many followers (let's call her "Brunhilda" for the sake of shielding her identity, and because it's fun), Brunhilda said, "Well, I do like your [blog] layout and everything, but do you really want to divulge all that rawness?  I mean some of it is just so dark and sad and I'd hate to think someone might read that and think you didn't have it all together."  This comment, of course, caused me to read back through my posts, which then inspired the following thoughts:  1) I wouldn't exactly call anything I've written dark, per se, and only sad in that sort of healthy, self-deprecating way.  OK, so I did use the phrase "rock bottom" in one post, but that's no measure.  2) all that "rawness," as Brunhilda put it, is a little thing I like to call "life," which brings me to the crux of this issue...

Wounds:  to expose or not to expose.  When one blogs, does one worry about such things as political correctness, "touchy" subjects, and nuggets of information that may or may not cause others to be saddened, alarmed, or otherwise disturbed?  Well, the writer in me is, of course, screaming HELL no!!!  If you're going to censor yourself, why write a blog?  Isn't there enough censorship going on without bloggers censoring themselves?  Come on, people.  

But actually, the political correctness/slander angle interests me much less than Brunhilda's concern that I might be divulging a side of me that others would find too "dark" and perhaps depressing.  Again, my inner writer's voice is  here.  I mean, what if Hemingway had felt that way?; what if he'd gotten to the end of For Whom the Bell Tolls and thought, Jesus, that is some dark shit I just wrote.  That's really gonna depress the hell out of people.  Let's just make a few changes here...[crosses out some lines, writes some stuff in the margins]...there!  Now, that's better!  Robert Jordan doesn't have to actually blow up the bridge -- they can just chill in the Spanish hills, guerillas and all, and work it out through peaceful and validating conversation!  And what if Victor Hugo had decided Jean Valjean's inner struggles were just too damned depressing for people to handle -- that Les Miserables would be a better book if we just got to see Valjean in his halcyon days?  Well, it'd be a shorter book, for one thing.  And he'd probably have to change the title -- "The Miserable Ones" is no good (too dark) -- perhaps something a little lighter, like whatever's French for "The Ones Who Might've Had a Few Bumps and Bruises But in the End Made Lemonade Out of Lemons"?

I'm rambling a little, I admit, but here's my point:  blogs are for thoughts on life.  And sometimes life sucks.  The best of times, the worst of times, you know...Dickens nailed it.  If people only write about the best of times, the worst feel worse than they actually are, cause then you not only have to suffer through life's downs, but you feel like you're doing it alone.  What's more is, if you don't find a way to live through the worst of times (and writing and reading are both excellent ways to do this), you never really fully relish the best.  And sometimes you just downright miss them.