Peek-a-boo

It's unlikely that most of us have anything particularly insightful to share with the world...Few of us will go down in history as great writers or thinkers...

I have been wondering why I am spending time putting these postings together? It's not like the whole world knows about them. Only a few people actually do, and my guess is even less bother to read them...

It used to be that people kept diaries but they were kept away from prying eyes... today it is more like we seek to share almost everything with the rest of the world? What is it we are seeking (if anything)?

The world is so interconnected maybe we just feel smaller and our existence and experience insignificant compared with that of others. Maybe our need to leave a mark has turned us into some sort of virtual exhibitionist... Seeking attention, or admiration? Maybe we are virtual voyeurs, addicted to the technicolour adventures of other people's lives, which makes us feel better (or worse) about our own...

The stories of others may certainly be a distraction but they can also be an inspiration. The need to write pure eccentricity ora desire to give a voice to a cause... Like everything else in life it always comes down to intent...

Although I wonder what the world would be like had the likes of Victor Hugo and Zola had these tools at their disposal... Maybe social activism would be more advanced?

Then again, I guess for every one of them there would be numerous others that would have filled the same space with 'nonsense'... Maybe we'd be in the same place we are now, only there would be an even larger number of pages to trawl through (Victor Hugo wrote some 18,000 pages works, letters and others in his life)!

For me this exercise is therapeutic... Sometimes it takes me days to try to organise my thoughts, others just a couple of hours! A bit like the Pensieve in Dumbledore's office, only without the magic, writing has always been a way for me to create some space inside my head, to get some clarity...To get the 'voices' to quiet down...

But then it is also true that we exist through the 'recognition' we get from the gaze of others. So we display elements of our life as we peek into those of others'; sometimes overtly, sometimes covertly...

'Normal' was never going to be an absolute so maybe it is being a bit of a voyeur and exhibitionist... and who knows what else...