09.09.04
From catharsis to crisis
The ever-perverse New Scientist this week carries an article on how people who keep a diary are more unhappy than those who don’t.
If only we knew if this was because they keep a diary, or rather, they keep a diary because they are unhappy.
I, who never kept a diary in my life, seem to have acquired this ersatz diarissimo. Ardent readers will have noticed that I’m not inclined to use it to discuss my personal life (as in what I’m up to and where I’m going), although I do talk about my inner life (as in what I’m thinking about). This, aside from being a hilariously male behaviour, is largely to do with exposure of the soul to the shadow world that is the online community. It’s not that I don’t trust you, dear reader, it’s that I don’t trust the reader over your metaphorical shoulder.
Now, this behaviour in itself might be seen as unhealthy, but I wonder if it isn’t qualitatively different from the sort of late night diary-scrawling which the NS regards as damaging.
I never thought blogs were diaries. That’s probably what makes this one not a diary.