Public versus Private

There is such a thing as an unexpressed thought.
You might be surprised about that these days as so many of us tweet and update our facebook status and buzz and blog.

There are things I know about some of my facebook friends that I would prefer not to know. I'm certainly glad I'm not still a student posting my drunken thoughts as updates.

Writing things down, talking about them with friends, expressing yourself, these can all be very healthy pursuits. Perhaps, though, there are limits to what should be in the public realm.

I've been writing recently about the winter funk I found myself in this year, and having recently read Gretchen Rubin's excellent book, The Happiness Project, I think I know where it comes from. I get grumpy when living with secrets or holding back truths, and I've got a couple of doozies percolating in my background. Oh, they're nothing illegal immoral or even fattening, but still, I don't think these particular troubles belong in this space. The things I want to say might get me arrested or sued. Or worst of all, divorced.

For years, I kept a journal of my thoughts, faithfully writing in longhand in various and sundry books, some cloth-covered, some leatherbound and most recently, a quite elegant moleskine. I have the collection squirreled away for safekeeping. For whom I'm saving them, I don't quite know.

But when I started blogging and voicing commentaries for my radio show, I stopped writing in the journals. I had slowed considerably after the death of my father, it being too hard to go back to the nearby pages filled with anguish at his passing.

But today, I think I need to re-start, to put some of my ideas and musings in a private space, where I can look at them later and marvel at my naivete, or insightfulness.

I think the world would be a better place if Charlie Sheen got a journal, too, because really, some things are just not suitable for publication.