Have you ever picked up an old diary and cringed at what you wrote? I remember doing that when I was probably 13, looking back at what I wrote when I was 10 and someone had given me a diary for my birthday. (I can’t remember if I tore it up or burned it.) Even when I was 10, I soon tired of writing my daily thoughts; they were too boring, even for me, the person writing them.
So I never developed the journaling habit. I know it’s a large part of developmental workshops, creative exploration, self-healing. But I just can’t do it, can’t bring myself to write about myself every day. My life is quieter now, but even in the midst of lots of activity, I never thought to chronicle it.
I’m sure lack of discipline is one reason. (It’s a good justification for not doing just about anything, don’t you think?) Another is that I didn’t think there was anything unique about it; it was just me, you know?
I guess that feeling is the opposite of what we in this country are seeing now -- all kinds of Americans acting as if they deserve everyone’s attention. On television there are the reality shows -- whether the topic is surviving or baking or designing dresses or buying them. Tell me -- why should we care?
Then there is what happens on the Internet. How did that tool for communications become the exhibitionist’s dream-come-true? People tell us they’re having soup for lunch or what groceries they bought. I wonder: who’s the audience, who could possibly be interested?
Have we somehow morphed the American ideal of equality, so revolutionary in a world of stratified societies, into the mistake of insisting that everyone is equal in talent or intelligence or beauty? And worse, we seem to have twisted the measure of a person’s worth into how much screen time she gets -- whether it’s a movie screen, a television screen, or a computer monitor.
Maybe it’s time to call “Cut!”
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