Journal versus Blog

I had to update the website to include Marcelo in the Real World (due out in March) and I took the opportunity to change the title of this section from Blog to Journal. Why? The simple answer is that ‘journal’ is a word that I am more comfortable with. It makes me feel better. It gives me the sense that I am writing things for myself (as in a journal) except that someone may read them. There was something about calling this a blog that put pressure in me. I felt guilty for not writing in it more frequently, for not commenting on this or that current event. I don’t know, somehow thinking that I was ‘blogging’ made me feel funny. It made me feel kind of pretentious and self-important. It made me feel phony. So now I write the same kind of stuff as before, but I feel better. I feel more honest. Why? I’m not exactly sure. As best as I can figure, writing in a journal (even if it is a public journal) gives me a sense of freedom. Here’s what I am musing on, thinking about, you’re welcome to read it, if you like. I write with a view that what I say may be helpful, interesting to someone and yet I keep a sense of integrity about the process by writing what touches me and affects me, like in a journal.