Conclusions on Blogging

I was fervently hoping that this was going to be the conclusion of my blog, although I have been informed that I must still update it.

I hate and resent being forced to add to the noise on the internet. We are jammed full with personal narratives and obsessions. MySpace and every other blogging site is an abomination of noise.

Does this make me a snob? As an anarchist I am totally in favour of open access publishing. However I have a problem with the presumption that someone wants to read the minutiae of my life, my processes, whatever it is we choose to share.

I want to speak. I want to have a voice. But, perversely, this doesn't come close to fulfilling this need.

I don't believe I have anything of value to add to a blog. When I was a full time activist, if the technology had been popular, maybe it would have been interesting. Even back then there would have been a limit to the number of times I could post “got nicked again” and “I'm worried I'm going to get sent to prison”, before it became boring.

It just seems so self indulgent to presume that anyone has the slightest interest in random blogging.

Okay, so I could be crafting beautiful posts. I could be showcasing my ability as a writer. It doesn't have to be a boring diary.

I just don't like the format. I'd much prefer these thoughts and processes remained here in my notebook where they belong.

There are also legal issues I have to consider. Any blog I write will never be totally open and honest because the State can read it. Cops who hound and harass me can read it.

And this may seem like raving paranoia or an inflated ego, but it is founded on reality, on years of harassment.

A few years ago, I was arrested and my house searched. The cops took my personal diaries, diaries I had not shared with anyone. These diaries catalogued my vulnerabilities.

As a very active activist, I had been on the receiving end of a lot of harassment, from violent wrongful arrests, to being followed, and having my photograph taken whenever I spoke to anyone at a demonstration. All of this mental and physical pain had been poured onto those pages.

Out on the streets, I was hardcore. I was sarcastic and arsey. Uncooperative and wilful. I never cried. I never asked them to loosen handcuffs even if I'd lost all circulation to my hands. I didn't show weakness. I didn't give an inch.

But back at home, after a few spliffs and the wearing off of the post adrenalin buzz, I sat, and documented the pain, the fear, the mental exhaustion I felt after a day on the front line.

So when the cops took my diaries, it threw me over the edge. I felt they had broken me. I felt weak and shaky. My enemy had my innermost secrets and I no longer knew how to cope.

Unfortunately I found my coping mechanism in the bottom of the vodka bottle. Not to mention the whiskey bottle, the wine bottle and the gin bottle.

But it was the tequila that finished me off. We drank more bottles than any of us can remember. We drank until I ripped my stomach lining and threw up a large quantity of blood and was rushed to hospital in an ambulance. Once there, I hallucinated cops in the place of paramedics, and only avoided being sectioned by a very patient friend explaining my background.

So you see, it isn't simple, sharing my thoughts on the World Wide Web. I can write articles, I can write stories. I can write anything that is finely edited and has a direct purpose. But this, this sharing of emotion and processes makes me feel too vulnerable.

I may not like the noise, but I could overcome this if it wasn't for the vulnerability. It is the vulnerability that is crippling. It's the vulnerability that blocks my path when I try to update these pages and it is vulnerability that has scarred me, stained me.
It took me a long time to start writing again. It's a cliché, but it's been a long and hard journey but I feel happy writing again. It's just maybe this is a step too far, a step I'm not yet ready for; a step I shouldn't be forced to take.