Dusting myself off. (Patreon)

I saw a really interesting blog by somebody replying to a subscriber of theirs who felt disillusioned that they hadn’t been sharing as much of their life as usual during a stressful/traumatic time.

I thought that was really interesting, because negotiating how much we’re willing to share with the world when things are good and when things are bad is an ongoing and complicated equation. It has to do with

• How much you usually share
• Whether sharing hard times lightens your load or is just another thing on your chores list
• I assume the quality of your regular audience plays in.
• The other people involved in the hard times and how much they want made public (!)
• How comfortable you feel with flexing when times are good.

I think my answer to such a question is that everyone needs a set of principles that they operate by, because you can’t really anticipate what’s going to happen, so you need some guide when things are chaotic and you can’t necessarily trust your own judgment. I have those principles, and I try to stick by them. Not always perfectly. I try not to share things that’ll expose other people’s stuff without their consent. I try not to share in anger (though annoyance often makes the grade). I try to consider whether what I’m saying will be interesting or useful or funny to other people, and not just self indulgence or neediness on my part.

All that said it’s been a rough couple of weeks over here. A rough month. Landing back in Australia we got slammed with jet lag and then a proper flu, and then a nasty fever thing this week.

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ETA: the above was a post I was drafting last week, and then the wave came up again and it’s been sitting in my drafts folder. Today is Monday of the next week, and I feel way less overwhelmed. I have a babysitter! I had a shower! I went for a little tiny run! I got two nights of human sleep! Anyway, I don’t know what insight I was building to above - I hope it wasn’t just me complaining, but I’m going to assume I was making a point about something and it would have been good.

This week’s salons will be open to all levels, and will be at 8am and 8pm Thursday (my time), your equivalent where you are. There will be a Sunday writers meeting. Links to be sent through on the day!