Sharing tools... and then life

*Update: This is phenomenal and it hit all the way home. It's probably something I should be writing about on another post, one about what really bothers me and too often stops me from posting, or even "hanging around". It's what I think about every time I want to write here. Read it. It's actually the post I should have written instead of this one. Maybe later.  *end update

Over the last few weeks I've tried to catch up with what's happening out here (out there?), if such a thing is possible. After two years of pretty much no blogging, I refer to the years 2002-2005 as "when I used to write online". When I knew how to do whatever I wanted to with Movable Type. When I was switched on. I've changed a hell of a lot and so have the "communities", to the point where I barely recognize either of us, but here I am writing about the very same thing I did years ago, except that I'm not so sure how I feel about it anymore.

I've read blogs about completely different things, blogs about the same thing but opposite in opinion, discussions and fights. Tech, personal, insightful and quirky, popular and invisible, I soaked it all up - as much as I could, anyway - and I keep thinking about two things: what we write about and all the RSS gathering and sharing widgets and websites. It might seem crazy but it isn't, I promise you that one thing is entirely connected to the other. (My god, it used to be hard enough deciding weather to comment on something or not, no? *laughs*) So here's what I'm thinking, right? First I stumbled upon (pun unintended) twitter, then friendfeed, then I reconnected with delicious and discovered stumble upon. All in a space of a few minutes. A lot of it seems to be about promoting your blog these days and it is indeed very cool that I registered to friendfeed and within seconds was "following friends" - who google had already found through my Gmail contacts. And then the friends of the friends, and suddenly I find myself reading about what they're doing, what they like, what sites they just discovered, where they commented and more.

Sure, the potential is incredible, the potential for disaster included. There are infinite ways to blog and the same goes for the ways in which you can use all these tools. And the point is, there's a part of me that thinks, is it just too accessible now, too easy? So easy that people with too much spare time on their hands get online more easily - only to bullshit? Don't get me wrong, the intention is not to judge anyone. Much on the contrary. This space is big enough for all of us and I believe we should all be allowed to express ourselves freely without too much interference such as getting shot at with a bunch of unkind and useless comments. But (I hear you asking) YES, we are opening ourselves to that. In fact we are one hundred percent willingly putting ourselves in that vulnerable position. What's up to each of us is simply how we're going to take it.

Oh look, I'm already getting lost in my thoughts. Okay, so a lot of people have been writing about what they don't like other bloggers to do. Some don't like private posts, some hate twitter, some don't like the popular bloggers, a lot of them don't like the lonely birds. In the middle of all that, the questions about blogging take up so much of our time that I can't really find the unrelated, really personal writing (this post, obviously, proves the point). My question is, do the number of people blogging and the tremendous accessibility of it all make connecting to people way too hard? Or maybe more to the point, does it just make it too hard to find the people you could connect with? Will the sharing tools make it easier at the same time as they can make it harder?

I find myself in the odd situation of wondering how far to go or how much to reveal. It seems that although the web can still provide for some a reality other than their own, it's also blended with "reality" more than ever. Facebook connects me with family and old friends, and with twitter, delicious, sumble upon and more importantly friendfeed on top of it, I realize I'm incredibly exposed - even though that might not make much sense since I've always blogged under my real name. But now I have all these people connected and the more I have my everyday friends and family reading this, the less I feel allowed to disclose. The possibility scares me and excites me.

At the end of the day I think it's just about being torn between all the possibility of sharing and my relative privacy. Privacy??? - you say. You??? I guess it begs the question why do I blog, and the answer is I'll tell you on another post. I can, however, easily affirm that if it wasn't in part for all the interaction, I most certainly wouldn't. The solution might be in simply not being as ridiculously blunt as I once was. Time will certainly tell. Right now the important thing is simply doing it.

I read two posts that gave me something, very opposite ones too. A heartfelt post by Lisa (via Fembat) that left me incredibly angry for her. And sad. It made me remember those times when my mother was sick and I struggled through it so much - and did it all out here, in the open. It changed me, writing about it and about myself the way I did. It made me better. I also read a post by Leah, who I've read for years, about the feelings she was left with after Blogher08. It made me feel giddy with recollections of the times when I knew I'd found true friends in the blogosphere and I can still recall the first time we heard each other's voices or made plans together.  I can almost touch again the excitement and the promise of that time. And for me what makes these posts similar is that they're both, in very different ways, honest. They are about very different people going through very different things and that is exactly what makes my experience here a richer one. Our diversity.

Whatever new tools are out there or yet to appear and however much sharing we choose to do - or not, I just hope that the ones who are out here talkin' keep talkin' it.

Comments

[Eliza]

I have dabbled with the sharing tools occasionally but never manage to maintain an interest for too long - there are just too many of them!

As for privacy, this is something I battle with whenever I make a personal post. Granted I now have the option to make it private or friends only - thanks largely due to the flexibility of Expression Engine - but it still worries me at times.