No chance to be naked?

It's time to come back to the blog and write. I'm not sure why. Like so many moribund blogs there hasn't been any incentive. There's no obvious audience and what is it that I have to say that anybody would want to read? When I start writing like this I admire those newspaper columnists who every week (or day) churn out something. It may be commentary on some world event, analysis of political intrigue in Westminster or Washington; or just as likely a discourse on home life or relationships or what they last watched on cable tv. Millions of words are written and most of them must be read by somebody, somewhere, otherwise why bother. We can all write in vanity, perhaps like this. We can accumulate written material that is only read by ourselves and we can admire what we say and think if only there was somebody out there interested; if only I had an audience.

Yet without an audience do I want to reveal anything? Probably not. Across the world of blogs there are many who spill the beans on their personal lives without thought, happy to reveal themselves to the world and tell that world about the relationships and people who they are close to. This woman called Emily Gould who was apparently famous in America for her revelations on the Gawker blog about Manhattan life and then having apparently pissed everyone she ever knew off by revealing their personal secrets to the world then writes a new column for the New York Times about her post-blog world.

So what does that create for people? If you start, or are in a relationship, with someone you know blogs publicly all that happens in your life how does that impact the way that you behave? Every day many, nay most, of us pull on a suit of armour and walk into the workplace; adopting characteristics and behaviours that emphasise the persona we want to be in the office. We may emphasise the positive to impress how we line up behind the company strategy, while privately not caring less. We may assert ourselves more so that we are seen as able to do, when actually we'd rather be shrinking violets and hide behind the PC monitor with a cup of coffee. And these things distort us and take us away from our authentic selves. We treat it as part of the process we need to go through each day; while I wish it were not so and may write in future about how the lack of authenticity in the workplace distorts and disables us all. However there was always the end of the day.

At home was the place where one could be oneself, surrounded by those we care about and who love us for our foibles, where we are comfortable and relaxed. Where we feel that we can hang up the suit of armour and reveal our true selves; to have the freedom to flex ourselves and bend in the ways that we don't dare to bend in the office or on the teleconference, figuratively to become naked. So how is that compounded by the blogger in the corner, perhaps complaining that you are quiet and grumpy after a long day's being smiley and positive? Perhaps comparing you to his or her previous partner, whether in the kitchen or the bedroom? Well it would send me scuttling upstairs and getting into another bulletproof vest, persistently on my toes, thinking how to avoid any indiscretion which might tomorrow be published to all of Manhattan or the world. Or even only looked at on one PC in a corner of Milngavie but knowing it is always out there, always available. How would we ever relax?

So I guess I don't want to write about the minutae of my private life, fascinating and exciting as it may or may not be, not have it written about by others. Because then I will be forever on my guard, battling, and never relaxed enough to be naked.