A few years ago, writer David Kodeski was rummaging through an antique store on Chicago's north side when he came across two diaries from 1960 and '61. He bought them, took them home and began to read. The result: "Another Lousy Day," a one-man play that details his quest to find the diary's author -- a single, working woman who lived on the south side.
The diary's author wrote meticulously about her everyday life: how she flirted with her co-workers, fought with her dad, shopped for things she didn't need, and searched for happiness as she worried about her weight and hairdo:
June 26: Another lousy day. Went to our new jobs on colored TV and are they ever awful and feel like I'm in Siberia. I asked Mike a couple of times about the controls and later on he called me over and showed me a book about a Baptist. He was so cute. Went to bed late.
Kodeski and producers Elizabeth Meister and Dan Collison, in association with Chicago Public Radio, have adapted the play into a radio story for All Things Considered.
The writer concludes that the diary author must have been depressed and miserable based on how she chronicled her life in her diary. But at the end of the story, he meets some of the diary author's friends, who describe her as happy and outgoing. I wonder if this is the case with most people, especially bloggers. The self we know inside is not the self we present to the world. Would some bloggers' coworkers be surprised by how insecure/unhappy/overwhelmed they feel? Does the blog personality match the real life personality?
6 comments:
I might write a post about this later. Great topic. My coworkers see certain aspects of my character, my blog sees different aspects, there is some overlap. I feel like I am something different to each group of people, and have trouble switching between it.
I think many bloggers coworkers would be horrified if they knew how unhappy their labworkers would be.
I wonder if people that put on a front in real life would also feel like they need to put on a front on their blog. Long-term habits like that have to be hard to shake.
That's an interesting question...I don't think either coworkers/friends *or* blogs/journals capture the totality of a person. The woman in the play that you mention... maybe she really is mostly happy but only vented about the bad stuff in her journal. Or maybe she was really sad and put on a happy front for her friends? Only she knows, and maybe even she doesn't really know. We present different facets of ourselves to different people and in different contexts...
It might just be a function of someone's writing personality. Whenever I am excited about life and what's going on, I spend more time enjoying it than I do writing it down. However, if melancholy strikes, I have no problem plopping down in front of my keyboard - perhaps to escape whatever is bothering me about my "real" world.
Hence, if anyone were to actually read my journal (as opposed to my blog which I try to keep balanced) it would look like I was always floundering and in desperate need of a good day. In reality, I am a rather happy person who tries to find a little nugget of good in everything.
I like to imagine the author of the diaries is the same way.
I think I am more introspective in my blog writing than in my RL conversations. I imagine many bloggers are since they have a captive audience who isn't forced to read, and many are anonymous. That could a create situation like you descrbe, Heather.
I think I am more happy and satisfied with my life than it might seem from this blog.
Hmmm...yes, and no. I think my blog comes off being cheerful but my "me" on the google group currently comes off negative - way more negative then I usually am! But hopefully that will change in time.
Post a Comment