I censor myself very tightly in posting personal details about my immediate friends and family and people at work. I may say things about medical topics I know about which I think are badly diagnosed or too often misdiagnosed or neglected. Sleep apnea and lymphodema are both poverty-related issues which ruins quality of life and endangers the lives of too many people, when there's much more effective coping techniques and treatments for it that many doctors simply don't know about. Whining about work is tempting, but of little value in improving my own mood and fairly useless to improving the mood of friends. I figure if there's a useful point, or if I need the advice, I may mention something fairly generic. I am very aware this stuff can get passed around in startling ways, because I'm occasionally startled at what happens to things I do post. I found myself accidentally busting somebody else's flocks by mentioning in an open entry something that I saw originally on a flock that I didn't realize *was* locked. That's not something I intended, of course, but it happens when you're tired and in a hurry. Partly this happened because I do find myself doing a yenta thing, where I put two people in contact. If I see some cool comment or link one one person's lj that I absolutely know will interest somebody else, and to the best of my knowledge they don't yet know each other, then I will pop up in either one to let them know I am crosspollinating. I may say hey, try this out--but I may or may not post it in general on my own lj, depending on how general the interest may be. I do use a few flist filters because I have circles on my flist with different interests. Posting a lot of pix of eyeless dolls in the process of struggling with the artwork on them tends to bug people who aren't into toys, for instance. I don't have a problem with posting links about writing, but honestly, lots of other folks do it more reliably and more often--you and arcaedia come to mind, for instance. I know some of my flist are interested in hearing about progress on my own stuff, but I find it difficult to post on that for two reasons. When I'm not writing, it bugs me even more that I'm not writing. And when I am busy writing, when the ideas are smokin', then why am I annoying myself with trivial maintenance efforts on lj instead? I do find it helpful sometimes to post hypotheticals, or to think out loud about some aspect of human behavior that has me stumped, and which my flist can offer tons of better advice on. And sometimes I go radio-silent when I just too busy, too tired, too fed up, unable to sound rational. Better to read other folks who are in a good mood and sharing their fun.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2008-05-09 04:16 am (UTC)Whining about work is tempting, but of little value in improving my own mood and fairly useless to improving the mood of friends. I figure if there's a useful point, or if I need the advice, I may mention something fairly generic. I am very aware this stuff can get passed around in startling ways, because I'm occasionally startled at what happens to things I do post. I found myself accidentally busting somebody else's flocks by mentioning in an open entry something that I saw originally on a flock that I didn't realize *was* locked. That's not something I intended, of course, but it happens when you're tired and in a hurry.
Partly this happened because I do find myself doing a yenta thing, where I put two people in contact. If I see some cool comment or link one one person's lj that I absolutely know will interest somebody else, and to the best of my knowledge they don't yet know each other, then I will pop up in either one to let them know I am crosspollinating. I may say hey, try this out--but I may or may not post it in general on my own lj, depending on how general the interest may be. I do use a few flist filters because I have circles on my flist with different interests. Posting a lot of pix of eyeless dolls in the process of struggling with the artwork on them tends to bug people who aren't into toys, for instance.
I don't have a problem with posting links about writing, but honestly, lots of other folks do it more reliably and more often--you and
I do find it helpful sometimes to post hypotheticals, or to think out loud about some aspect of human behavior that has me stumped, and which my flist can offer tons of better advice on.
And sometimes I go radio-silent when I just too busy, too tired, too fed up, unable to sound rational.
Better to read other folks who are in a good mood and sharing their fun.