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October 22, 1999

A Virgin in the Temple

So here I am writing the first draft of the first entry in my online journal. It is an exciting adventure. I am about to bare my soul, revealing the inner workings of my well worn mind. It is a bit like taking your cloths off in public, letting things slip slowly and that is exactly what it feels like. Journalists are the nudists of cyberspace, and with this posting I am joining the colony. So here I appear, stripped and approaching the alter of technology. A virgin in the temple.

I have kept a journal, off and on, for a great many years. Writing in a book, or even in a file on your own hard drive is very, very different from writing an online journal.

My hardcopy journal is a little green book, while I'm writing entries I carry it around with me like a security blanket. The little green book has followed me into cafes, coffee shops, and bars. The little green book has accompanied me to parks, street corners, libraries, woods and fields. I am never alone and never lonely in the company of my little green book.

The appeal of the little green book is not just the feel of the paper, the sight of welcoming blue lines waiting like open arms for my feelings and opinions. The little green book is an instrument of immortality. When someone finds this little gem, hundreds of years from now while mining a land fill site for historical data, I will finally be heard. My voice will ring with the truths of my era, the voice of the common woman. By then I will be dead. No one will ask me "Hey, what did you mean by that you @#*%!" No one will be there to contradict my take on the events of my day. Unchallenged in the far future, the words I write in my little green book today are the history of tomorrow.

But the words written here are an entirely different affair. You, dear reader, are the difference. I ask you, have you ever seen my little green book? Will you be conducting archeological digs on landfill sites in the distant future? Ha, not very likely! The words written in my little green book are relatively safe from an uncomfortable accountability. These words, however unlikely it may seem, may be read by you. In writing these words I am always aware of your possible presence. You just might have an opinion yourself; it might not be the same as mine; you might choose to let me know and you might not. But I suspect that you exist, and that makes all the difference.