Inspired by Your Face(book)
I think we talk to ourselves and secretly hope that someone else is also listening.
– Kolys from TOBWOT, quoted on FaceBook
I’m a long-time journaler. Somewhere, packed in a box somewhere, there are old books – many with cheap, flimsy locks on them – detailing my daily life as a preteen, as a teen, and through my twenties. I have a paper journal even now, as well as maintaining multiple blogs and online journals. With online media, one expects to be read – by our friends and family, or by the Internet at large. We know we have an audience, and we hope they’re paying attention and not bored to tears by the ins and outs of our every day lives (or maybe that’s just me.
Funny thing is, though, what struck me about my husband’s comment wasn’t its relation to blogging. It resonated with the paper-journaler within me. After all, it’s no “secret,” as he puts it, that we want to be heard when we’re typing away at our screens. But paper journals are private. Aren’t they? Still, what aspiring writer hasn’t thought, at least occasionally, that their diaries might be found someday, long after they’re gone. (or, again, maybe that’s just me).
I write for myself, yes. I write to get my feelings outside of my head, and to thrill when I find just the right turn of phrase. But I also write for my audience, real or perceived. I write with the hope that someone will read my words and be affected by them.
I write because I hope someone is “listening.”
While it might be a little presumptuous of me to comment in agreement with something that was (at least partially) spawned by my own words, I think you’ve gone a lot further with this idea than I had even begun to look at.
I too indulge myself in the notion that someone, somewhere, might be inspired or affected by what I have to say. Perhaps it’s because we all want to make a difference, or to believe that we can. Perhaps it’s because on some level we all crave validation.
I might even go so far as to suggest that for a writer (whether journalist, diarist, storyteller or something else) the ultimate definition of success is precisely the realization of that idea. I would rather have ten people tell me that they were influenced by my words than have a hundred people pay to read them but forget them once their eyes leave the page.
Of course, if there are a hundred people out there who want to pay me to blog… step right on up, folks.
It’s good to let out the feelings tormenting you by writing, unlike others, who use alcohol, drugs, or violence to “feel better”.
Keep writing what you feel and think, and don’t forget that everything has a solution, but death, so never give up!
Great blog, keep it up!
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