Tales of the Dark Side
Feb. 23rd, 2003 04:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gurdonarkA few folks suggested to me that it would be interesting to read about my "dark side". I thought this a very good idea, but I found, to my surprise, that it is a very hard thing for me to write in public some of my flaws. The very fact that it was hard, though, made me come to believe that it was an effort worth undertaking. Why be a chamber of secrets? What do I gain?
I remembered that I had made a New Year's resolution for my journal to start a side journal in which I explored more self- consciously "literary" things. I still intend to do that, but I realized that perhaps my "dark side" is really another journal. Accordingly, my new journal,gurdondark has been created. I intend this journal to contain "100 Tales about Gurdonark's Dark Side". I have written the first four "tales", which sit in the journal now, waiting to be read. I plan to interpret "dark side" broadly, including in my 100 Tales stories of flaws and faults, wrongs and maladjustment. It will be heavily edited in its own way, as all journals are, but I am going to try to tell this journal things I don't like to tell anyone. The journal in which I write now is intended to be by its definition a kind of musical comedy. gurdondark is intended to be a bit about what happens when the music isn't playing.
I have paused a good bit about filtration on the second journal. At first, I thought it would be best to keep it private until all 100 tales are finished. But this could take months, and I am not sure the reader gets a corresponding gain. I thought about making it friends only, but frankly, a lot of my LJ friends are not real life friends, and any filtration to "friends only" would not really enhance fundamental privacy all that much. I see little point in filtering it down to my four or five real life friends, as some good number of my LJ friends I consider "as if" they were "real life" friends, perhaps rightly, perhaps wrongly. If I wished to say these things only to "real life" friends, I would phone or e mail them.
So I elected, whether good or ill, to makegurdondark a public set of posts, at least for now. I may edit, delete or filter later. I also decided to let folks know about it, even though I am have completed but 4 of 100 posts along the way. I enabled comments, so that it is just a routine journal, in a darker vein. I expect that it will contain some stuff that is quite dark and some stuff barely dusk-ish. But the notion of writing highly confessional negative material intrigues (and disturbs) me, so I will open it to others, in case anyone wishes to read. I have pre-edited to preserve privacy, but I think that most meanings will be clear.
I know ahead of time that my "dark side" is not that dark, and yet that parts will surprise those who know me. So look if you will--but be prepared to be either bored, or rudely awakened. I know that I have been awake for hours working on this new journal. It's not quick writing for me, and that tells me something, right there.
I remembered that I had made a New Year's resolution for my journal to start a side journal in which I explored more self- consciously "literary" things. I still intend to do that, but I realized that perhaps my "dark side" is really another journal. Accordingly, my new journal,
gurdondark has been created. I intend this journal to contain "100 Tales about Gurdonark's Dark Side". I have written the first four "tales", which sit in the journal now, waiting to be read. I plan to interpret "dark side" broadly, including in my 100 Tales stories of flaws and faults, wrongs and maladjustment. It will be heavily edited in its own way, as all journals are, but I am going to try to tell this journal things I don't like to tell anyone. The journal in which I write now is intended to be by its definition a kind of musical comedy. gurdondark is intended to be a bit about what happens when the music isn't playing.I have paused a good bit about filtration on the second journal. At first, I thought it would be best to keep it private until all 100 tales are finished. But this could take months, and I am not sure the reader gets a corresponding gain. I thought about making it friends only, but frankly, a lot of my LJ friends are not real life friends, and any filtration to "friends only" would not really enhance fundamental privacy all that much. I see little point in filtering it down to my four or five real life friends, as some good number of my LJ friends I consider "as if" they were "real life" friends, perhaps rightly, perhaps wrongly. If I wished to say these things only to "real life" friends, I would phone or e mail them.
So I elected, whether good or ill, to make
gurdondark a public set of posts, at least for now. I may edit, delete or filter later. I also decided to let folks know about it, even though I am have completed but 4 of 100 posts along the way. I enabled comments, so that it is just a routine journal, in a darker vein. I expect that it will contain some stuff that is quite dark and some stuff barely dusk-ish. But the notion of writing highly confessional negative material intrigues (and disturbs) me, so I will open it to others, in case anyone wishes to read. I have pre-edited to preserve privacy, but I think that most meanings will be clear.I know ahead of time that my "dark side" is not that dark, and yet that parts will surprise those who know me. So look if you will--but be prepared to be either bored, or rudely awakened. I know that I have been awake for hours working on this new journal. It's not quick writing for me, and that tells me something, right there.
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no subject
Date: 2003-02-23 03:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-02-23 06:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-02-23 03:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-02-23 06:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-02-23 05:13 am (UTC)What an interesting exersize!
no subject
Date: 2003-02-23 06:11 am (UTC)A very odd exercise, but it does stretch a few muscles within somehow--maybe it's some kind of gym work for flabby assumptions.
no subject
Date: 2003-02-23 06:48 am (UTC)Great name!
I'll be reading it, and might even be inspired to do likewise (there is a LOT of material to choose from).
no subject
Date: 2003-02-23 07:37 am (UTC)no subject
no subject
Date: 2003-02-23 07:38 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2003-02-23 07:55 am (UTC)no subject
Now I find it unnecessary, and a poor, poor substitute for
no subject
Date: 2003-02-23 08:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-02-23 10:10 am (UTC)and second...how brave! and personable and revealing!
you could easily be the next voice of america, the new Charles Kurault, you are so at ease venturing into new human territiories
i do fint it interesting and will contemplate it more that you keep the two journals distinct from one another...or more simply that you know what you want to do with the first one in the first place
no subject
Date: 2003-02-23 02:06 pm (UTC)I see I've already had one friends' list member drop off, so I hope it does not show me in too awful a light. Maybe I'll wish I had stuck to upbeat!
gurdonDark
Date: 2003-02-23 11:19 am (UTC)I've read the posts to day, and am fascinated. Not in the train-wrech fascination sort of way, but the fascination in seeing a whole new side of someone that you (think you) know.
So far, I think the writing is most excellent, but the thickness of the layer of guilt lying between the lines is most alarming. Maybe that's just due to justaposition with this journal, which is so hopeful and happy. It made me worry for a bit, and then I reallized that it was probably a good thing to get the writing done, not for public consumption, but to get it worked out for yourself, if you haven't fully put these things in your past.
And it's another reminder that I need to continue my own autobiography that I was working on earlier this year...
Re: gurdonDark
Date: 2003-02-23 12:05 pm (UTC)Re: gurdonDark
Date: 2003-02-23 02:05 pm (UTC)thanks for the kind words. I almost went with darkgurdon to prevent just the "scanning" confusion you experienced, as I read that way, too.
Re: gurdonDark
Date: 2003-02-23 05:00 pm (UTC)I've been reading...
Date: 2003-02-23 04:53 pm (UTC)Re: I've been reading...
Date: 2003-02-23 07:28 pm (UTC)