Friday, February 11, 2000

I am fascinated by online journals. I love reading as much as I love to write my own. The first online journal I began to read regularly was Heavy Sigh. It quickly became one of my favorites, and was the first journal I felt that was worthy of placing my email address on a notify list. I must admit that I miss it now that it doesn't update regularly.

Others soon followed as I surfed this mass of media known as the World Wide Web. I came across journals of all sorts, some I liked, and could really get into, and others I couldn't. I sorted through popular journals, lesser known journals, well-written journals and just plain shitty journals.

And you know what? I'm still sorting.

Of course, I really don't have the time or the inclination to read every journal out there in Internetland, but I still love it when I come across a piece of good writing. Here is a forum where people are pouring their souls out for what amounts to a faceless public. Some of them are funny - they bring out the humor in the situations that life throws at them, others are tragic, reminding us that not all is beautiful in the end; Most lie somewhere in the middle. There is a human being behind every journal, and these people are letting us know them without the satisfaction of them ever having to get to know us.

It all comes down to people in the end. It is the humanity behind the online journal that is truly important. The world of the online journal appeals to me because I can be reminded that there are others like me out there somewhere, while simultaneously, I just might get exposed to another way of thinking. It's a risky business, this online journal reading - you could find yourself looking at things in ways you never thought possible. You could be changed.

It's an even riskier business, this online journal writing. A line from Jewel's song, "Foolish Games" puts it best, "Here is my heart, bleeding before you." At least that is how I see it every time I post a new entry to The Project. I'm opening up and saying things that I may not say to people's faces. I'm pouring a piece of myself through my fingers, into my keyboard, onto my screen.

Emily Dickinson, when asked why she didn't publish her poetry, replied with, "How can you give away a piece of your soul?" Of course, she would then in turn, throw pieces of poetry that she had written on scrap paper to children playing below her window. Apparently she felt that children were more deserving of a piece of her soul than publishing companies.

I am by no means Emily Dickinson. I may be putting a piece of myself into this journal, but I feel that I am not really giving it away. I look at it as more of a museum of myself - a display if you will. I will show it to you and you can look, but you can take nothing with you but the memory and the knowledge and that you may look again someday.

It is still my heart bleeding before you though. You could try and take it, but you'd never succeed. This is my pain, this is my joy, this is my sorrow, this is my anger, this is my elation this is my rage, this is my hope, this is my despair, this is my journal. Sure, it can be copied and pasted. It's still mine - you didn't feel those emotions, you didn't have those experiences, I did. You can never truly take that from me.

You can take with you a better understanding of me though.

I am never sure of my relationship with my readers (aside from my friends who confessed to reading). In a way, this is ultimately as much for them as it is for me. If I wanted to write for myself, I could have just stayed with my paper journal, and never created The Project. In September of 1999 though, I felt the need to express myself. I felt the need to let somebody know the things that I couldn't tell everybody face to face. I needed to make a few confessions to the world, without the immediate grimace of a face to face judgement. I needed to confide in something in a forum that would allow me to stretch out on my topic to explain as completely as possible what I was feeling.

Thus I began my project.

My project is still being worked on. My project is nowhere near completion. I still have so much to say. I still have so much to do. I still have so much to live. Barring some freak occurrence that causes my death tomorrow, I'm not even halfway through my life.

[I once played with one of those "How Long Will You Live?" machines that you see in truck stops. I put my quarter in, placed my hand on the sensor and let it do its thing. It was one of those machines that had a string of green to yellow to red LEDs, the more LEDs that lit up, the shorter your life span - i.e.: if you had all the LEDs lit all the way into the red, you were as good as dead according to this machine. Only one green LED lit up for me, indicating that I would live a long time. I know it is silly, but in a way, this just served to reinforce my long-held belief that I was going to live quite a while. Of course, maybe my fingers were just a little sweaty on the sensor. I still believe that I'm going to live quite a while though.]

So I keep writing. I continue to tell my story. Do my readers really care about me as a person? I'm not sure. Maybe I just tell a good story. Then again, am I not the story? If one cares about the story does that not mean that one cares about me in some school of twisted logic? I'll philosophize over that at a later date.

This is the online journaling experience. I am a reader who became a writer. I lay these words out and they constantly point anyone who follows their path to me. The same thing happens to me when I read someone else's journal. I look at them, but they can't see me while I'm looking. You look at me, but I can't watch you as you watch. We are all voyeurs in a massive game of confessions and pondering.

We are approximately 2,000 strong, us online journalers. If you look at the text long enough, you eventually see a person. What exactly do I look like when you gaze upon my words?

Goth #2 was finally persuaded into showing up at Hurley's yesterday evening. She was unable to stay very long though, as she had things to do. This means that she didn't get to see me play. She promised to come back next week though to see me perform. I'm holding her to that, especially since I'm seeing her perform in her band tomorrow evening at Hurley's.

Not that I mind going, I'd go anyway. I just want her to show up for open mic, so I can show off a little bit.