Integrity requires me to post this, to make it absolutely clear once and for all:

[hmpf]

I complained here about the unmanageability of my flist and my lack of desire and/or ability to read non-fandom-related stuff by a majority of people on said list. (You all know I've actually been complaining about that a fair bit recently.) And, it just occurred to me that whining about that kind of thing in between entries about my personal psychological crises and entries about my neighbour's cat could be seen as... just a tad hypocritical.

So, to make this quite blunt (I like being blunt, sometimes):

I can't read all of you guys, all the time. I just can't. It's not that I don't like you; I like a lot of you rather a lot, and there's no one on my flist I dislike or anything. It's a time issue, simply and depressingly.

So:

If I am aware of the problems of keeping up with hundreds' of people's personal lives on LJ, why am I still making entries about *my* personal life here? Simple: first and foremost, I'm doing it to keep a record of my own life, for my own use. I quite enjoy being able to go back to an entry from 2002 and find out what I did and felt five years ago. I also find posting here about some things helps me clear my mind. Secondly, I write in the vague hope that some friends with whom I would otherwise find it difficult to keep in contact (I'm not very good with e-mail) will occasionally drop by if they want to know how I am and what I'm doing; I'm doing the same in their LJs and blogs. It's the continuation of e-mail by different means: instead of mass-sending e-mail updates about my life I post said updates to my LJ, where people who happen to be interested can check them if they feel like it.

From this follows:

there is absolutely no reason in the world that says you have to read my personal blatherings (or anything I post here, really). I will not hold it against you if you don't. I know what it's like to be completely swamped by LJ: I *understand*. If you really *want* to read what I write here, I'm flattered, of course, but you really, really don't have to. Honestly.

(Wouldn't it be great if it were possible to subscribe only to, say, the entries in someone's LJ tagged 'fic' or 'meta'? I'm sure that would remove quite a bit of stress from many people's lives.)

Comments

[tgifa.livejournal.com]

See, and I (mostly) only read your personal entries (because our fandoms differ too much nowadays), although I don't comment often (or never -_-).

But I admit, I also have phases where I just can't get myself to read my (microscopically small) flist or participate in internet life in general, and when I get back, I don't really bother much with catching up. What I missed, I missed; I only read the newest stuff.

But hey, where's the point in reading flist entries from a year ago anyway? What was last year, was last year; what's now should be more important.

And don't feel bad for making personal entries without reading others' personal stuff, I think everyone does that, more or less.