Public and private

Sharing circles are a thing. After a yoga class or camping trip or whatever, people get into a circle and share their feelings.

This blog is basically a sharing circle for me.

But there’s the trap with sharing if you focus too much on how you will be perceived. Maybe, you feel a pressure to say something interesting or significant so that other people go OOOOHHH and AAAAHHH.

I thrive on feedback. Screaming into the world and getting some kind of response. I have kept notebooks for many years, and it’s nice to cull entries and put them into this blog which is like a soapbox on which I stand and share my thoughts.

But there should always be a place that’s private. A diary that no google algorithm can access, that no other people know about.

I need both public and private. Without a venue for sharing, I feel lonely, like I’m all by myself screaming into the desert and maybe I’m a crazy person here, alone with all these thoughts. But sharing everything makes me feel like I am not my own person, like everything is on display, like I can’t have a thought that’s unfinished or unflattering or ugly or pointless. Without the freedom to doodle and make bad work, there’s just too much pressure.

So sharing circles are nice, but staying quiet is nice too.