Being open and transparent about my thoughts—an open book—is valuable, but it comes with its problems.
This blog contains many of my thoughts. I’ve attempted to define purpose, what I value, how I learn, the habits I want to build, emotional reflections.
Unsurprisingly, someone would be able to read this blog and build a perception of how I think.
I think this is mostly positive; transparency is a result of honesty. It also demands that I’m confident about my ideas and how I’ve developed them. I believe externalizing my thoughts is a positive experience and it devalues the importance of them.
There are some clear disadvantages too, though:
An asymmetry exists of what I know of someone and what they know of me.
Suppose I go on a date: the person opposite can show up to the café with extensive knowledge of how I think and what I value. In the conversation, and perhaps in any following events, an imbalance in understanding exists. This opens me up to be more easily manipulated, but I suppose it’d be up to me to discern this.
I suppose one could easily argue that being transparent would help this dating scenario. If someone completely opposes my values or beliefs, then they’d very easily pass on. The blog serves as a solid barrier. It’s likely the most valuable social profile of me that exists.
My thoughts are much more malleable than I believe. Most posts on my blog are no longer accurate representations of how I think. I think it’d be a disservice to perceive how I think by reading something I wrote a year ago, or even a few months ago.
This might be a problem, but I suppose it’s not a new one. People are judged based on their past actions; I wouldn’t blame you for building an understanding of me based on what I wrote long ago.