the need to know

  I've started several times and set it aside several times. Writing a book. I was using a website called Fastpencil that provided a free template for writing. I did enjoy that as it formatted the pages and chapters for you. I know very little about using Word or any other program like that to format pages and I hate trying to learn. I'm trying to remember where I left my coffee cup most of the time so remembering all that seems like just too much effort. But I had a good start and had several chapters written. Then I set it aside. When I went back to it that website was no longer available. Seems they have changed their name, and I couldn't access that site either. Some sources say it was all a scam anyway. Whatever the case is all of what I had written is lost. Reminds me of an episode on the Waltons when the house burns. John Boy lost his manuscript in that fire. Then he can't get started again. Later he does, of course, but things always work out pretty good for the Waltons when you think about it. I'm not a Walton.

  Thinking about what I had written so far, I realized that it was more an explanation than anything else. My thought when I began was to document my journey through life. I was including whatever insights I felt were important to pass along to the next generation. The more I thought about what I had written the more I thought, well, not much was really lost, that manuscript wasn't very good. I had thought also to leave a record. My thinking there was to tell the story myself in that way getting the story right. What I mean is we all hear the tales about those that have passed on, told by others, that may or may not be the facts. Legends are born that way and so is notoriety. Today I'm questioning all that. 

  Do I need to leave an explanation? The truth is that it is solely up to me. It is up to each of us. Explanations are given for two reasons. The first one is to convince others to react in a certain way. The second is to convince others that you were right. There is a subtle difference between the two. You have to decide upon the intent. What is the intent of the explanation. When I began writing that intent was to leave a record. That's what I told myself anyway. I simply wanted to set the record straight. Now I'm questioning that as well. Could be I just want the last word, something I have been accused of a few times. But that leaves me in a bit of a quandary. If I'm not writing to accomplish that, what I am writing about? I have no interest in simply writing a piece of fiction. I'll leave that to Stephen King or JK Rowling. 

  My sister wrote each morning in her journal. That is what she called it, not a diary. She told me that when the journal was full, she just discarded it. No one else read those journals, not ever. She wrote them solely for herself, a type of self-help therapy or whatever. I have been writing these blogs nearly every morning for thirteen years and each entry is available to anyone. There is a difference however between what my sister was writing and what I write. At least I believe that would be true. Having never read anything she wrote in those journals I'll never know for certain. 

 But that is the mystery of journals or diaries, isn't it? You aren't supposed to know. Those are the places secrets are recorded. The difference in what I write is, I don't write down my secrets. That doesn't mean I don't have them. I do know this much for certain. If you want to keep a secret, don't tell anyone. Pretty obvious isn't it. It is a lot easier to do if the secret isn't a burden. That's why we share them, to lighten the load. But carrying the load makes you stronger is my thinking. And that's the reason so many are weak today. They just can't carry the load, bear the weight of their own convictions. 

 When sharing a secret, the intent is to gain sympathy. Sympathy when given is called empathy. That's what those receiving it would rather it be called. I suspect that is why the word was first invented. It's what we tell ourselves.

  We need secrets. That's the long and short of it. There are some things that are simply none of your business. That is what is causing a great deal of the issues we are facing today. Too many sharing secrets with those that have no need to know. Listen to the news on any given day and you can see evidence of that. Pick a topic, any topic. The problem with sharing those secrets is that it doesn't lead to transparency. Oh, that is what those wanting to know all the secrets will call it, transparency. The truth is it isn't transparency at all, it provides an opaque view of things. You don't get a clear picture at all. All you are getting is what the one telling the secret wants you to know. Works that way in journals and diaries too. My advice is to quit worrying about what you don't know and concentrate on what you do.   The hardest advice to follow is your own. Now, what was it I was thinking about? I don't know it's a secret, I guess. Do I really need to know? Apparently not, I just keep on writing.