From Dear Journal to dear blog. Hello, the world!

Dear Journal,

What a gloomy day today! I woke up thinking of breakfast but in the end, the calculative me gets the better of me and I decided to make my own meal instead of sitting in the café with my cup of coffee and eggs benedict….

Hidden in a drawer at the corner of my bedroom are stacks of diaries. Lying on my bed every night with my small bedside lamp, I wrote to my diary/journal about my day and what I was feeling. When I was in Primary school, I wrote about how sad I was for not getting the present I want, about not being as outstanding as my friends and not getting the attention I yearned for. When I was in Secondary School, I wrote about the crush I have in school and about my puppy loves. When I fight with my friends and was feeling terrible, I wrote in my diary. When I bunched up with my friends the day after, I wrote about how great it was to have friends. Weird dreams that I had or even some usual days when nothing special happened were recorded down in my diary. They are personal…. or rather, quite personal if I disregarded the fact that my younger sister used to read them everyday as her storybook. Sometimes, for some unknown reasons, I will open this drawer and start flipping through my entries. The papers smell of some old cardboard and the pages are stain with what seemed like rust. I don’t know that papers rust. Dear journal, sorry that I have forgotten about you…

Since 15 or 16 (I could not really remember now), I stopped having books of journals and turned to blogs. Instead of keeping my life and feelings personal, I increasingly make everything in my life public. From Dear Journal to Dear Blog. Hello, the world! I remembered saying, ‘what kind of narcissistic person will like to whole world to know what they are up to!’. I was absolutely against the idea of blogging in the past. It just did not make sense to me. Open diary is no diary at all. The idea of a diary is supposed to be all personal and secret, if you reveal it to the world, there will be nothing secretive about it anymore. It will just become an exhibition of your life.

Well, that was what I thought.

Until today, I still have not gasped the idea of blogging. Cultural theorist, Thomas Mallon concludes that no one ever kept a diary for just himself. The idea is that if you don’t think anyone will ever read it, you will never keep it a habit to write it everyday. If you do write it everyday, it is your motive to hold on to something or someone, to make your everyday seems more real.

Real. What is that??

In my diaries, I did not write in full sentences and my points sometimes(or rather, MOST of the times) didnt make sense. I wrote any words that come to my mind. I was not writing, I was spilling words. Most of the time, they do not really reflect who I was. I wrote them in anger, in sadness… in impulse. However, one thing is clear, I am not trying to impress anyone.

In blogs, I think before I write (while… most of the times). I packaged my writings before I published it and if I feel ashamed of what I wrote the other day, I deleted the entry and made it disappear from ‘the face of the earth’.

Maybe it’s the blurring of public and private in today’s society that makes us think that it is all natural to publish every single trivial thing about ourselves to the public. We are living in an ever more encompassing panopticon that we think it is ok for the government to put up CCTV in every corner of the street, for our friends to constantly know what we are up to in twitter or facebook and for our grades and resume to be kept in a database that is accessible to all.

Just like how MP3 replaces Discman and DVD replaces VCDs, blogs are replacing diaries. There is no right or wrong. Our public life has merged with the private now. There is nothing that people don’t know about you. Your boss can find your private blog or facebook page and know that everything you said in the interview about yourself were crap. Well, face it.

People adapt. We have not said goodbye to diaries, they simply changed name.

I was furious at my sister in the past for reading my diary entries, now… I voluntarily showcase it to the world. The irony.

Because we give more, we expect more from people now. The standards of people to people relationship has changed. instead of sending a letter to say that you are alright, it is now best to send a SMS to report that u are safe the minute you touched down from the plane. last time, it is fine to go without handphone for a day, now… its almost not possible. If you are going overseas, one of the criteria you look for in an accommodation is their Wi-Fi service.  Stay connected is not a ‘once in a while’ thing anymore. You have to be connected 24 hours a day, 365 days a year =)

U want some privacy???

come on! u think u are still in the 90s?! =)

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