Journaling vs Blogging
As I venture off into this new world of blogging- I have to ask myself…which is the more worthwhile pursuit? Good old fashioned Journaling, (putting pen to paper, for those of you that are unfamiliar with the term ;) ), or Blogging?
I have been a long time journaler (Is that a word? If you say it is spanish it would be journaladora-maybe :) ) and I have really benefited from the practice. I have probably about 20 volumes that chronicle my life from 11 years old to now. At various times I have had different journaling practices as my life has changed. Sometimes I would write every day and other times, like now, I write whenever I can get a chance- especially since now I have a kid, one on the way, a husband and a house to manage. I still enjoy journaling, and write on average about once a month- usually when I feel like I need to reconnect with the direction my life is taking. It’s very refreshing and helps me to refocus my feelings and my priorities and also to update any future readers of major events that have occurred in my life.
Blogging on the other hand, is an electronic form of journaling as far as I can tell. It is,however,an intensely public way of recording ones life, whereas journaling is intensely private.
The question I pose is can one replace the other, or can they go hand in hand? Maybe I’m just posing this to myself. I consider myself to be pretty careful in the decisions I make and I hope that by joining this blogging world that I will not put my journaling by the wayside, more than it already is. I don’t think that will happen as I have just pointed out the extremes of public and private records.
I have a personal goal to spend less time on the computer. I think so much in our world today is centered on electronics and technology. While that is a good thing, it can also be a bad thing if it is overused. Some days I don’t think I even set foot out of the house, and I’m surrounded by computer, TV, washer and dryer, electricity, running water, so many conveniences that it’s no wonder I “lose myself” and have to go back to my journal to ‘reconnect’ and ‘reprioritize’. Sometimes we have to force ourselves to get back to basics- pen and paper, a walk and talk with a good friend, stopping to ’smell the roses’, blowing bubbles in the yard with your three year old, baking a loaf of homemade bread- all these things remind us that we are alive, and we have a lot to be joyful about.
I think I’m doing pretty good at balancing my computer time and my ‘real life’. I am grateful for the conveniences that we have that are email, instant messaging and blogging. I know I have been touched by people I wouldn’t have otherwise ‘met’ because I found their blog from a friends, friends, friends blog. ;)
To answer my own question- I think that I can have the best of both worlds- as long as I keep a balance in everything. I hope I’m right. :-)
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I think both are valid. A blog is, as you say, a public exhibition. A place to share with the world the things you’d like to share that maybe nobody cares about (or maybe they will, and you’ll change someone’s life, or the world!). A journal, on the other hand, is for you alone. If you used to write things in your journal that you also shared or wanted to share with the world, then you may write less in your journal. If you only wrote private things in your journal, I think you’ll write in it the same as before.
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