Of real-life blogs and imaginary ruts

Babble on.

I've just finished responding to some correspondence from a fellow blogger - one for whom I have great respect - that deals with how much of one's personal life is appropriate for a blog.

Of course, there are no rules. The only limits on what should and shouldn't get posted are one's own reservations and boundaries.

I've typed a couple of really personal entries, saved them, and deleted them upon rereading in the light of another day. Somehow they always seemed...mawkish, I guess. Inappropriate. The funny thing is, I have no problem opening up about personal stuff with people face-to-face. But on a website, it just feels very "Look at me! I'm imperfect! Please approve!" and that's not me at all.

Here's the weird thing: I like reading blogs that get personal, uncomfortably personal, as long as it's done well. Like this:

I'm tired. I'm tired of people's meanness and the insoluble arguments that never seem to leave my surroundings or leave me out of them. Sox vs. Yankees. Republicans vs. Democrats. Everything. I'm tired of ugliness and everyone thinking they know how to run everyone else's lives and no one getting a break and the fact I have to work two jobs just to make enough money to live AND do what I'm good at, while Steve gets little more than the shaft for showing up at work every day.
...
Argh. I'm really doing some championship whining today. I apologize. I'm just allll bentouttashape today. Probably just hormonal. I'll soon be on the rag and you can just disregard the anger contained herein.

For a couple of months there, I was floating, and it was quite nice. I'd accomplished a goal. I was adjusting, growing accustomed, putting things off. Now things are crushing back in on me again. I'm turning around a corner. I hate corners. I hate change. I hate uncertainty. I hate transition.

That kind of leaves me SOL, doesn't it?

I just can't seem to write my own version of that - or rather, I can't seem to bring myself to publish it.

I know part of the reason for my reluctance is a man-sized helping self-interest garnished with a sprig of common courtesy: I have a wife, kids, extended family, friends, co-workers, and various acquaintances who didn't sign up to be fodder for my blog, and probably wouldn't appreciate seeing my [melodrama] deepest, darkest [/melodrama] thoughts and feelings about them published for all the teeming masses of web-empowered humanity to see. Who can blame them? And I decided before I even started Babbling Brooks that my web-life would only exist so long as it didn't impact negatively on my real-life. Blogging has the power to turn a guy into a modern-day Rip Van Winkle. In fact, back when Shannon and I only posted to AC's comments, I told her point-blank that I'd never start a blog because I didn't want to disappear into the basement to sit in front of the computer and post, only to walk back upstairs and find my three-year-old Boo was getting ready to move away to university.

Now look at me.

The thing is, that reluctance to impact my "real-life" only extends so far. I work in sales/service. It's entirely plausible that a client or prospective client could Google "Damian Brooks" to see what they find. Hmmmm...Babbling Brooks in the number one slot. What if they disagreed with the slightly-out-of-synch-with-the-Canadian-mainstream political angle of most of my posts? What if they complained to my bosses? What if I lost an account over pixels on a computer screen?

But I've already rung that bell, and I can't really un-ring it, can I? My worries haven't stopped me from calling the majority of the Canadian electorate a gaggle of whining ninnies, and worse. In for a penny, in for a pound, right? Well, I'm finding that's easier said than done.

Some of my reluctance surely comes from not knowing who's reading. I've chatted personally with many of the Brigade, and shared a beer and some personal stories with a few. I've even been trusted with the 'secret identities' of a couple of anonymous commentors. It all seems so cloak-and-dagger until you remember that, of all the stupid ways to lose a job or a friend, losing them over a blog would have to be one of the stupidest. And what's to stop some effing troll, or a Liberal lawyer for that matter, from using my own...musings, heh...against me? Don't mull that one over for long, 'cause the answer is nothing. It takes all kinds to make an internet, and that means you and I have to be careful, right?

Well...maybe not too careful. Maybe not quite as careful as I've been thus far.

I'm becoming increasingly convinced that personal stuff is the pinch of salt missing from most political-blog recipies. So I'm going to try to add it here. We'll see how it works.

Babble off.