The curse of being read

I started this blog because I wanted to capture my impressions of a trip to Canada last year. But I continued it because I saw it as an opportunity to jot down some mundane thoughts, observations on daily life, and reactions to things I read and listen to. I have never been any good at keeping a journal, though gawd knows I've tried many times, and once or twice have been able to keep it up for months at a time. On average, though, I'm terrible. I write for a couple of weeks, then abandon it for a year or more, so there is no coherent narrative, even after years of doing that. Not sure why this is, beyond my basic laziness and lack of discipline, but I suspect it's because knowing that a journal will not be read by anyone other than me, or at least knowing that it's not supposed to be, and thinking that it won't, causes me to pour out all the negativity and frustration onto the page, all the bile and bitterness. It has got so bad at times that even the author himself has no interest in going back and re-reading old entries. Even Céline has nothing on me in that department, but that's a topic for another post. Bottom line, I can only do so much of that before I disgust myself so much that I have to put the pen down.

The blog, on the other hand, offers at least a possibility that it will be read. Most likely by someone I don't know stumbling upon it, but still. I certainly didn't intend it to be read, but the mere possibility is enough. I have to keep it family-friendly, as it were. There is a problem, however. Possibility turned into actuality, and from what I gather, some people do actually read it. Nothing major, just a couple of friends here and there (bored at work, I suspect), but still. So now there are things I can't write about even though in the abstract they would be perfectly family-friendly, and even fun and enjoyable both to write and read about. A measly half-dozen readers (if that), and I'm already up against a conflict of interest. Judges recuse themselves from cases regularly. Evidently, bloggers have to as well. Maybe it's time for another burst of journal-writing.