To Be or Not To Be

A little kingdom I possess,
Where thoughts and feelings dwell;
And very hard the task I find
Of governing it well.
~ Louisa May Alcott

...that more or less describes my situation!

~A Wise Man Said~

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
~ Aristotle
Thursday, December 13, 2018
 

One of the reasons I like reflecting about things on my blog as opposed to any other social media platform is because it gives me the illusion that no one is reading. Even if you are, you’d most likely be people who are genuinely interested in what I’m saying if not actually able to relate with my thoughts. Writing feels enjoyable to me if I don’t have to filter my thoughts too much and don’t have to cater to a ‘specific audience’. For example, on LinkedIn you know you have to say something that is relevant to careers, work, etc. because that’s what the space is about. On Facebook, you know your uncle and cousins are reading so that cramps your style and even your content quite a bit. Twitter puts too much of a premium on space so you either have to have an idea in a nutshell or something very current and breaking.
 
All these platforms have some or the other built-in constraints; naturally so because that’s what differentiates them from each other and that’s why they are all still alive and running. But the blog platform which was my very first social media venture remains to this day my top favourite. It gives me the scope to explore without any constraint on topic, without a care for who my audience is, without any specification as to word limit. That’s not to say that I treat it like a completely private space. Very long ago, at the time I first started this blog, I adopted this mantra that I read somewhere that anything you write on the internet is like writing on an open postcard. Maybe intended for a few but can be read by all and if it is read by anyone at all, I should be fine with it because that’s the nature of the territory. The consciousness of it being like an open postcard does work as a subtle constraint at the back of my mind but in a positive way because it makes me feel a sense of responsibility about my writing unlike what I would feel if it was my private diary. This means that I do reflect more about whether my writing conveys my message well, whether it is coherent, whether it could be misinterpreted, whether it is meaningful as a piece of writing. I wouldn’t worry about these things if it were meant for my eyes only but I think this extra bit of reflection helps me tremendously not only to hone my writing but also to evaluate my own ideas. If I am unable to express my ideas clearly for an imaginary reader, chances are that my ideas themselves aren’t clear. It is in this kneading of my own thoughts, ideas, arguments in the writing process that I feel I come to better understand not only the subject matter of my writing but myself as a subject…
 
When I go through my years and years of posts on this blog, I almost feel like I am getting newly introduced to this person who is actually myself… though I am usually surprised at how little I have changed! :)

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 6:19 pm 0 comments
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