Friday, February 27, 2009

Dear Diary

Hello there WordPad. There's been something I've been meaning to discuss with you lately, and it's about the whole concept of people talking to inanimate objects. No, no one needs any help of any sort. I'm talking about something that's fairly commonplace and that people don't really take issue to much. I'm talking (for about the second time now) about the topic of diaries.

No one really seems to be bothered by the fact that when someone writes in a diary, they're not recording the events of their day for the purposes of tabulation, or to maximize their door opening efficiency. What people that write diaries are really doing is talking to an inanimate object. They tell their tiny little books about things that happened today at work that are responsible for the creases on the back cover of the very same book, and that they're very sorry about creasing it, but they just need to get this all out so that they feel much better.

Diaries become a form of very submissive, accomodating, and in all aspects, incapacitated confidants. They can't really argue back about how compromise would have been a great thing in that situation or that the writer really is that much of a hindrance to the mental processes of others. In fact, when you think about, they can't really agree with anyone either.

Or maybe some people don't use a diary for the purposes of ranting. Some uses them to record thoughts and ideas and fantasies and the sort of things that would get them funny looks and would most probably end up having their daily actions recorded by someone else.

What diaries offer is something that human beings simply aren't capable of offering, and that also means that neither is a substitute for the other. Diaries are an entirely different market in terms of social interaction. They provide a neither agreeing, nor disagreeing companion, that doesn't say a word till you're done, and in fact, doesn't say a word once you're done anyway. What they offer is something that you can talk to without ever having your unique or strange ideas and perspective shot down before you've had a chance to fully get them out. Diaries are essentially psychological vaccum cleaners.

Wouldn't you agree?

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