posterity

I don't like how prolific and relatively simple the act of self-disclosure has become. It always seemed to cheapen the act of telling one's story to me, this making it too accessible to everyone. Some people should not be given any kind of platform, as their command of language, self-knowledge, and motivation for speaking immediately are suspect to me in the first act of utterance. I wish I were more skilled at sifting out certain voices in the first place, because the colossal waste of time spent listening politely becomes my personal regret. One can never regain lost time, no matter how well-intentioned the wasting may have been, and I'll be damned before I legitimize the voice that wastes my time by endorsing the platform it stands upon.

This is the argument I have long employed against blogging. After listening to several podcasts from NPR's StoryCorps while on the road with my husband, I now happily repent the above remarks and undertake a blog of my own, although I'm not quite sure why. I am surely a hypocrite, though: one of those romantics who imagines grandchildren discovering my old journals in the attic decades from now. In my future-dream, they are so intrigued that they read them for an entire summer, forgoing novels and movies to immerse themselves in the fascination of a once-youthful grandparent.

There is never any guarantee that what I say here will be of interest to my grandchildren, or to anyone--that is why self-revelation is always a bit reckless. We'll say that I am doing this first, because I am feeling a bit reckless, second, for the pleasure it will bring me (I am a hopelessly verbal processor), third, for the ease of archiving the web lends this form of journaling, and finally, for a possible posterity.