How many of us still keep a diary? Sometimes, I wonder if people still know what a diary is anyway. I’m not going to go technical about the definition of a diary by referring to Webster’s or Oxford’s, but as far as I understand the concept of a diary is that it is something that we write on about almost everything that you wouldn’t normally tell anyone else, which normally consist of private thoughts and ideas. It is a way for you to pour your heart out and the diary literally becomes an imaginary friend, who continues to listen to your problems without fail, as long as you are willing to write in it.
A diary, more frequently than not, associated as a girl-thing, and quite frankly, there are more girls that own a diary than guys. But to be honest, I think it’s a neat idea to have a diary, in fact I used to have a hard cover diary once, which I kept for about 5 to 6 years or so, and then I stopped for quite a while. A few years later, I restarted it, and I began writing my diary on a word processor instead and keep it in a computer folder. Time evolved and so must the means, but not necessarily the concept. I think it’s a pretty neat idea to be able to go to a specific point in your past, and recall what you were thinking or did at that particular time.
But the fact of the matter is a diary is meant to be a private belonging. The mere idea of a diary be exposed to the public used to be unthinkable – it was a mortal sin. But as modern technology begins to take over our lives, the concept of diary takes a new form. Some of the people nowadays resort to weblogs and various social media.
Blogs in particular can be used for various purposes and through various methods. Some blogs are used to share ideas, while some are used to share interests, such as my Planet Cybertron and New Planet Cybertron pages. There are even those who use blogs as their diary, sharing their feelings and personal matters with the whole world.
I used to be totally against that idea, and I normally thought that personal things should remain personal, and it is unethical for personal stuffs to be told in the public.
But the more I think about it, the more I began to understand, why people chose to write their diary online, either on weblogs or on various social media. People write diaries because they need someone to listen to them. When you think about it from another perspective, it’s kind of stupid trying to tell an object, such as a book that would not be able to respond or comment.
More often than not, those who commit suicide are those who have nowhere else to turn to, no one to listen to them, no one to give them any opinions. That’s why there are various NGOs such as Befrienders that provide a channel to anyone who needs someone to talk to.
Sometimes, although we would like to keep our feelings or thoughts private, in reality, what we really want is someone to talk to, someone to listen to our problems and someone to give us ideas to solve our internal conflicts. Yes, more often than not, a person is encouraged to confide to a trusted friend, but how many of us really do have such a friend? Some people are lucky enough to have that type of friend. Some people are lucky enough to find that type of person in the form of their spouse, their other halves, or even a sibling.
Not everyone have that luxury.
I know how it feels like to have all of it bottled up inside, and sometimes it feels like it’s eating you from within. Sometimes, when you keep too much in and the pain becomes unbearable, it eventually explodes and that’s why sometimes you and I, we enter a fit of rage and loses our cool.
I still don’t quite like the idea of revealing our feelings or personal issues online to the general public, but I’m saying that I totally understand the justification. Everyone has that moment in their lives where they just want to scream their lungs out until there’s nothing else. It won’t do anything to solve any problem, but you do feel some form of relaxation once you’ve done it.
Keeping a diary is good, and in fact, I do encourage people to keep one. Whether or not you want to share it out to the world is another issue.
So now if you excuse me, I’m going to go and write my diary next.
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