(no subject)

I deleted the last post, but will attempt to recapture this bit from it, because I've decided it is important.

This should go without saying, but I will say it anyway.

LIVE JOURNAL IS NOT A PUBLIC FORUM!

What it is, with the exception of group journals or communities such as fandomlawyers or metafandom which are clearly their own separate thing, is a series of interlocking personal journals. I call it my correspondence club. But it's not really correspondence. It is a group of personal journals that interact with each other. When you read someone's journal it is like reading their correspondence and they are trusting you with that correspondence. It's not a fan discussion board. It's not like whedonesque or buffyforums or yahoogroups. But personal journals containing people's personal thoughts, often things they may not be sharing with anyone else.

When you enter someone else's journal either to read it or to respond, you are entering their domain. They do not have to let you read it. They can lock it, they can filter it, they can make it private at any time. The fact you are reading this post for example is an act of trust on my part. I deleted my last post. I can delete this one at any time. I can flock it. I can make it private. I can edit it. It is my journal, I have that ability. If this post was on a fanboard - I'd have to get a moderator to do it. And they most likely would ignore me.

So the very fact that you see this post is an act of trust on my part. I'm TRUSTING you enough to share my personal thoughts with you. I am trusting you NOT to hurt me. Not to insult me. Not to humiliate me. That's a gift. And I do not know about you, but trust does not come easily for me. Trust is important to me. I am careful with it.

Also I do not have to let you comment. I can turn off comments. I can filter them.
I can screen them. I can disallow them. I can ensure that I never see them. I can delete them at will. I can also ignore them. I do not have to respond. A lot of professional writers such as Neil Gaiman never respond to comments. Perhaps that is wise. It is hard to respond to comments. It is also sometimes hard to read them. But we all want them, otherwise we would not be here. I want to hear your thoughts, I want to connect to you. But I do not want to be insulted, embarrassed or attacked in my journal.

When you comment to someone's journal - the person who owns the journal sees all the comments. They usually will get them emailed to them. They may see them in an inbox.
So unlike someone else on the thread who has to work to look at the comments, the owner of the journal sees them. It is also their journal you are commenting in. Their home. They are trusting you to respect them and others in that home.

Their live journal is about them NOT you. It is a place to post THEIR personal hopes, dreams, wishes, fears, furies, pains, woes, anxieties. To rant or rave at their heart's content. To scream at a writer or fictional character or politician or bullying boss who is driving them insane at the moment. They may change their mind tomorrow, but right now - they need to vent. And they are sharing those stories with you. That is an act of trust. The ability to share pain and love with another. And while it is more than okay to commiserate, inform, support, confide, share, and even gently suggest corrections or provide alternate views for much deeper discussion, or even to mildly disagree - it is NOT okay to insult or attack someone in their own livejournal. I do not care what your righteous cause is or how righteous it may appear to be to you, I do not care if you are absolutely right and they are absolutely wrong - to attack someone else in their space, humiliate them, and embarrass them, makes their journal suddenly all about you, not them. You, a guest, in their home - have verbally assaulted them in their own house. And I'm sorry, but that is quite simply RUDE.

I reserve the right to rant or rave about XYZ without filters. I will however put it under a cut-tag with warnings, so you can scroll on by and not have to read it. I will give you the choice to read or not to read. I trust you enough to be able to make that decision. Without having to work to filter you out. I am treating you like an adult. And trusting you NOT to attack me. I have 0 tolerance for anyone attacking or insulting me in my own journal.

This is my home. I am trusting you as you are trusting me in your homes. Trust is a fragile thing.

* Please keep in mind when responding to this post, that I have been struggling with a mental and emotional depression since January...and this week for reasons I will not elaborate on here, is difficult for me.

(no subject)

1. With any luck my last post didn't piss off half my flist. I don't think it did.
But I've noticed a lot of people have an odd way of looking at lj. It's probably the whole social medium blitz. Facebook, tumblr, twitter...we have no sense of boundaries or personal space. It boggles my mind how people can come at you and insist that you change your journal to cater to their needs. As if you're writing it for them. Uh no.
No one on lj is making money off their journals, guys and gals. At least not to my knowledge. Also there is this odd catch-22 scenario going on - you want to connect with people, share your inner-most thoughts but you are afraid you are going to scare them off. You want to find a way to express who you are, without them running for the hills. If that makes sense. If not...eh...don't tell me.

2. The Fault in Our Stars - okay, this book is the young adult equivalent of William S. Gibson's Pattern Recognition - although I think it may actually be better than Gibson's book. It reminds me a great deal of it. But it's less, how to put this? Pretentious? I like Gibson, quite a bit, but he is just a tad pretentious. You also get the feeling that Gibson is commenting on something he's not really in the midst of - after reading his interview in Paris Review, I'm positive this is the case. John Green's The Fault in Our Stars feels in some respects more real, and more relatable, more tangible in a way. It's about media obsession and the interaction between audience and creator, but it concerns books as opposed to film, and the emails. Also the main characters are two teenagers with cancer.

They've fallen in love with a book that ends abruptly - in the middle of a sentence.
They want to know what happens next. So they individually email the writer, who in writerly fashion refuses to answer their questions, but is touched that they wrote him. The interaction between these two teens and the writer reminds me a great deal of the Buffy fandom's interactions with Whedon and his writers and editors.

I'm tempted to transcribe the two letters for you...from the novel. But it's late and that's too much work. What I will state instead is this: if you loved William Gibson's Pattern Recognition - you should read John Green's The Fault in Our Stars - it's a lot funnier than Gibson's book. Gibson is a lot of things, but funny really doesn't come to mind. If you loved The Fault in Our Stars? You should read William Gibson's Pattern Recognition. Both discuss the need to relate through cultural media, as an escape from hopelessness and despair. Or the use of an obsession with a cultural medium as a way to escape despair. Finding hope through someone else's even if it is fictional, especially if it is fictional, story.

Something I can oddly enough relate to.

Fascinating book so far. About a third of the way through.

3. Am considering buying the Box set of Game of Thrones tomorrow to cheer myself up. Some people go clothes shopping to cheer themselves up. I buy DVDs, CDs, and books, no wonder my apartment is so cluttered. What I should buy is a new armchair, couch and coffee table. But that's not as much fun. I sometimes wonder if I'm 44 going on 16.