How much honesty is good? It there such thing as too much candor? Does being fully transparent and honest do good?
I’ll be candid for a moment… I hold back my true feelings and honest opinions and don’t write what I often want to share in this blog. Why? Because! Because of many of the pains in a post that Tracey of Beyond the Pale has written today. You can go there and read her post and my comment on her post. I would often love to write about my job, church, and other experiences but I don’t due to the fear of the repercussions from those that abuse people’s honesty.
I think that there are people I can be totally honest with and people I can’t. The people I can be transparent with are people I trust implicitly. They are people that will not disparage me for my shortcomings and faults, people that will love me despite the fact that I am not perfect. The people I hold back with are all the others. It is a safety net for my well being.
The questions above are very serious and need some serious consideration.
I am going to give this idea some more thought and post more on it when I feel like I’ve processed it a bit more.
The paradox of insular language
7 months ago
4 comments:
After reading Tracy's blog, I'm terrified to post a comment there :-) One thing I've realized is that people don't want to be around the real me when the real me is whiney, mean and grumpy. There's a difference between total honesty and bad behavior. Doesn't Paul instruct us to "do nothing out of vain ambition or selfish conceit"? How can Christian bloggers manage that? Blogging seems inherently narcissistic and yet here we are, posting our thoughts for everyone to read and yes, for everyone to judge. They won't all love us as we love ourselves.
I also acknowledge that I don't know anything about Tracey other than that one post and comments... I'm just commenting on "honesty in blogs" as a general topic. Please, any- and everyone, don't rip me to shreds!
Sarah, you are safe from the shredding.
I realize that this has probably blown over and no one except maybe Brian will ever read this, but I like to spout off a bit every once in a while... Like Sarah, there's no way I'd post over at Tracey's site and besides, it looks like it's blown over there, too.
As I read that post, I immediately wanted to post to back up Lori, who pointed out that it was naive to assume that something posted to the internets would ever stay truly private. But I think Lori held her own- in a very adult manner.
And now, one link from some bulletin board group somewhere who thinks her attitude is funny and Tracey could be all over the place, more "famous" than she could ever know.
I feel bad for her, but I think naive is the word...
Anyway.
I am pretty open about who I am on my blog. And since I blog about work and personal things, I do watch what I say online. I can't be 100% honest about some of the people I encounter, especially co-workers. What if they read about themselves? But I do try to keep my stories positive, just in case.
Like you, though, I have my inner circle of people with whom I am completely honest.
As far as your bigger questions, I'm afraid I have nothing much to contribute. I do think too much candor can be extremely unhelpful. If you believe that half of the point is loving your neighbor as yourself, there are many times that complete honesty would undermine the cause.
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