I'm not calling bullshit on the bulk of her entry, which was a (predictably) well thought out defense of her writing and content. I call bullshit on this:

But the privilege of writing for myself and exploring my feelings is important enough that I am willing to deal with them, should it become necessary.

I furthermore call additional bullshit on anyone who makes the claim that their unlocked, public-forum diary is written for themself... especially if the implication is that said diary is written only for the writer... and double-plus especially if that claim is used to defend saying hurtful, abusive or destructive things (which, I hope you'll note, I'm not accusing Blaise of doing).

Face it folks... we aren't writing for ourselves here. We're writing for an audience. We're writing for the readers. That is why all of this stuff is going into AN ONLINE JOURNAL.

The biggest claim that we can really make is that we are writing for self-gratification... i.e. the joy we get in knowing that others are reading and enjoying our work. That's an entirely different thing than "writing for ourselves." There's nothing wrong with it, but it is an entirely different animal.

I do write stuff for myself. Lots of it. Files and files full. Dozens of unposted journal entries, unsent e-mails, vitriolic or affectionate letters that are sealed and placed in a filing cabinet, and pages and pages and pages of hand written journal entries.

You will never, ever see any of it. I wrote it for myself. Part of the idea of writing for yourself is that you keep it to yourself. If you write something with the intent of showing it to a bunch of other people... it was written for them.

It isn't my intent to flame Blaise here (because what I'm actually railing against is the unspoken belief that a diaryland journal is essentially similar to a private journal, and I don't believe that Blaise thinks that... though I do think that that idea is buried somewhere beneath the phrase "I'm writing here for myself"), and it also isn't my intent to imply that writing in online journals is not therapeutic or beneficial to the writer... but I think that the idea or claim that an online journal is "written for yourself" is a dangerous, damaging fallacy.

If we're doing all of this for ourselves, then why is it being disseminated in a public forum? Why go to the trouble of signing up with diaryland? It's easier to write in Word than it is to format HTML.

I'm writing to entertain my readers or to engage in discourse. I'm writing to share interesting ideas and thoughts with you. I'm writing as a form of interaction. I'm performing.

Why are you writing? Any of you?