Private or Public

There is something about sharing your life with a few people but sharing your life with just more than a few people is a whole other story.

There is a reason why people like me are drawn to classy magazines such as People, InTouch, and the sort. There is this fascination with other people's lives.

I really started to have this fascination, curiousity, or whatever you want to call it, maybe just being human, in my early 20s. I had this idea of being somewhat of a personal journalist. I thought that by getting to know others, I would gleam some wisdom and maybe even get to know myself a little bit better. So I brought a little tape recorder (before digital came out, I think) and a willing heart to listen and learn.

My first "subjects" was my cousin and her then husband. They told me of their lives as a married couple. Being single I was intrigued and wanted to know how they lived as a married couple. At some point in the interview I felt a little bit uncomfortable because my then cousin in-law was back handedly putting my cousin down in a very self righteous way, in the fact that he did his devotions and she did not. He read the Bible and she didn't (?). Well, if he was really reading his Bible, he would have lifted his wife up to the Lord in prayer instead of badger her and put her down for not walking the way he thought she should be walking.

I've since listened to that recording in disgust and they have since divorced. I HATE divorce but he wasn't changing and there was so much more nastiness that came out of that marriage then I would ever know or dare to put here.

Later, instead of being really interested with other's stories, I started to become more introspective. And for an introvert, that can sometimes be dangerous, in the lesser sense. So that recorder that I had to record people's stories, came to record some of my own stories.

I have gone back to memory lane listening to some of those recordings and I can't help but either laugh out loud at some funny antics or comebacks that were said or cringe in horror at some of those memories of heartaches of relationships past.

Needless to say, those tapes are buried in a drawer somewhere.

Now that I have access to Blogger, YouTube, Facebook, people's lives are out there! Mine is too in a way.

So I have a couple of questions. Maybe a few.

~How much is too much information?

~Are we really connecting with society or people that we call friends through Facebook or YouTube?

Trust me, I am not bashing FB or YT because I have and am using them for some much needed connection and information.

As much as I want to share my life with others and maybe through it encourage others, I'm still struggling with what to share.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

Love,

Mrs. M

P.S. There is this show on Public Radio called This American Life.  I think he had the same idea as I had but his got feet and ran. Listen to it sometime :)