How to Protect What You Love in the Age of Instant Sharing

Uneasy about “share first”#

When I started reading English books extensively, I wrote about the books I read and my impressions on note (a Japanese blogging platform).

▼ The post from when I started reading English books

Starting Extensive Reading in English: The First Books I Read

It was for my own record. And I thought it might help others who read the same way choose their next book.

About one of the books, I honestly wrote that I hadn’t enjoyed it much. Maybe my English wasn’t good enough and I missed the foreshadowing. Maybe my impression would change if I reread it someday. That’s what I wrote.

Someone left a comment on that post: “If you’re not enjoying it, you don’t have to force yourself to read it.”

It’s advice you hear all the time in the world of extensive reading.

Skip the words you don’t understand.
If a book is boring, move on to another one.

I don’t think they meant any harm, but advice I hadn’t asked for left me feeling unsettled.

I wasn’t looking for the right answer, and I didn’t want to be taught how to read efficiently.
I just wanted to keep my own experience in words, including the process of not enjoying the book at the time.

On the internet, you can’t control how other people receive what you publish.

Everyone sees things the way they want to see them.

Nurturing inside, putting outside#

So should I make everything private, out of sight of unspecified strangers?
I believe the act of “putting it out” has meaning too.

I write about my day and keep a diary in a notebook every day. That is entirely my own sanctuary.
I can write anything openly there. It’s a place where I only talk with myself.

▼ How I write in my notebooks

Still Figuring Out How to Write in My Notebook and Planner (in Japanese)

But that alone isn’t enough for me.

When I try to write something on my blog, my back straightens.

Thinking “someone might read this” makes me choose my words carefully so they’ll be understood.
As I work at it, I sometimes reach what I really want to say, and I feel deeply convinced myself.

Because other people’s eyes might fall on it, I try not to cut corners, and that leads to growth too.

The blog gives me something the closed room of a notebook can’t.

Finding a distance that doesn’t break me, with WordPress#

In his Discourse on the Method, Descartes wrote about publishing his own thoughts:
“I hope that it will be useful to some, and harmful to none, and that everyone will be at least somewhat satisfied with my frankness.” (my paraphrase)

This is what I do.
Some of it may not apply to other people.
But this is how it went for me.

That’s the kind of sharing I like.

Not handing out the right answer, and not trying to be handed one.

Time to nurture what I love without anyone interfering, and time to offer it to the outside world.

I want to keep sharing from a comfortable distance.