The Warpfish Chronicles

"28 years on the planet, and I still haven't figured out what's going on."

The Art of Discourse -- September 5th, 2002

I wrote earlier this year about the weblog phenomenon, and about how I didn't think I would start keeping one. Sure enough, the shoe went on the other foot, and now I write Warpfish Stories at LiveJournal.com. So, more focused topics appear here, in the Chronicles, while my more immediate thoughts and emotional rantings appear in the Stories.

Yet, the questions remain. Why do I write? Why do other people write? Why this public discourse?

Writing is many things to me, a source of memory, a way to figure things out, a saftey valve when my emotions get too strong for me to contain within myself. It's a way to practice my self-expression; I figure if I can write it well enough to explain it to myself, I can probably explain it to other people if they want to know my opinion on something.

Still, in a world driven by privacy, and for somebody like me who is fairly private, it seems odd that I would put these up publicly. Especially given how I can waffle around a point, flipping sides, as I try to find something I'm comfortable with, making me look like a hypcorite from the outside. Yet, when you look closer, there isn't much up here that is secret. My opinions are available if asked for; my current mood is public knowledge, since people can just look at me. By writing about my motivations and my hopes and dreams, I figure out what I want to say, and its stuff that I would explain to people if they asked for it.

Still, I try not to burden people with it. I've mentioned in other places that, by writing these opinions and ideas down, it's the choice of the reader to read. They can choose to participate, or they can move along while they journey through the web. Sometimes, I get lucky, and people enjoy or take something useful away from my experiences or mistakes.

I suppose there's also the validation part. In a world where communcation between people seems to be at a premium, writing these entries helps in that communcation, and through that, validates your existence. When I'm gone, parts of these thoughts and ideas will still be around. It's not my primary or even secondary goal for myself; but I can imagine that there are those who believe this is a way to achieve some sort of immortality.

In the end though, it's all about communication -- trying to get your point across and understanding other people's points. Or, in this case, helping myself understand myself. If one person reads these, and gets something useful out of it, then putting them up on the web has been useful. If one person reads these, and understands my world a little better, it has been useful.

But, in the end, these things help me deal with the world better. And maybe one day I will figure it all out. Or even if I don't, I'm closer because of what I write.

At least, I hope I am. I guess we'll see...

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