Hiatus

I havent been able to blog for a lot of reasons, and ive been feeling very guilty about abandoning it so... oh i dont know, flagrantly. i've really tried to bring myself to write, but Ive been lazy, listless, too addicted to this dumb game called Zookeeper on EBaum's world, and frankly, have not known what to write, or how to say what my heart feels without being too revealing. (Actually, I started my post on my birthday in Calcutta twice, and both times it got deleted, and Im too bored to type it out on Word first and THEN copy and paste it here).

Ive been thinking of privacy lately and how much my blog HAS changed since Ive started it. Its changed because maybe, I have. You know i used to be so trusting, and to a large degree I still am, and i realised how stupid i was. Ive been open because Ive never had any reason to feel that I need to be ashamed of my opinions, or who I am etc. And lately, eveyrthing that happens to me is so personal, so profound, yet so quotidienne in its frequency, that I wonder if Im missing something. Or that i'm not experiencing enough. I read Gaurav Sabnis's blog and Sepia Mutiny and I feel ashamed of myself, and how little Im in touch with the world, at how much my opinions have disintegrated. Today, I can only talk about clothes and shopping with my fiance, and dance class of course, (which has been my spiritual saving grace the last few weeks), and I feel DUMB. Im not doing ANYTHINg with my life, and I cant even keep a relationship going straight most of the time.

Yeah, so why are people private about their lives? Because they genuinely feel it isnt anyone's business, or theyre afraid of people judging them, because they 'respect' themselves or the persons whom are inolved in that particular aspect of their lives, or simply, that theyre ashamed. I think its this last element that creates privacy about many things (except about things that attract the evil eye like pregnancy or a desirable engagement, etc). Im not sure shame and respect can comfortably coexist. women are expected to have 'shame' about virginity, sexuality, clothing - modesty, drinking, smoking - aspects of honour relating to men. Men are expected to have shame about honour, money, drinking, smoking, - aspects relating to themselves. If you truly respect someone, or yourself, you'd never do anything you'd feel the need to be ashamed of (and this set of values or shaming things will differ from person to person), and vice versa. Thus if youre not ashamed of anything, the question of respect wouldnt arise and you'd never have any need to be secretive about anything or anyone.

Now problems occur because of this difference in values from person to person. If, for example, your relationship with your partner isnt working out, one person may prefer to pretend that everything is amazing in public, while the other may be perfectly fine with being honest about it, or talking about one's problems to one's friends, while not declaring it from the rooftops. Now I dont think this necessarily means that the honest partner wants to humiliate the dishonest one in any way, or that s/he wants to end the relationship, just that s/he acknowledges that humans have failing, and ergo, human relaionships also have failings. The downside to this may be the failure on the part of his/her friends to refrain from discussing this with still others).

That is the fundamental problem with humans. A gap between communication and interpretation. If one is casual about an opinion, it must be treated casually, and not made a sufficient deal of as to feel the need to analyse it with others. Information is vital in a society, and judgment that is necessary to individual survival, but not idle gossip, which has unfortunately, been the ruin of many a relationship that was teetering on the edge of survival.

So yes. I have been being careful. I do not wish to be analysed or criticised. I dont want people around me, who i am responsible for, and who are responsible for me, to bear the brunt of any carelessness of mine, or for me to cause them any more pain that is necessary in my life. I want my words to be just that, words, and not fodder for character assassination. For a change.