Perspective

I was going to write about being tired today after cleaning the house, washing dogs, cooking, and hosting the women's group meeting today, but then I started an unrelated preamble to capture a thought.

Even if I only participated in NaBloPoMo every year sans other blogging or journaling I would get an interesting way of checking in with myself over the course of the year. It would be similar to looking at the previous New Year's Resolutions at the end of the year in preparation for the new ones. Or taking stock at birthday time. What did I accomplish? What did I fail to accomplish and why? The failure might have been due to external factors that required a change of direction or focus, or I might have looked at the goal relative to other things that could be goals and decided to shift to a new focus. A month's worth of entries gives a slightly larger perspective because the time allows for wider diversity of thoughts and focuses. A month allows for less intense days or days focused on the weather or the trivial, not just the BIG THINGS IN LIFE.

From the reader's perspective, too, reading only 1 month of someone's life could be fascinating. I see potential here for fiction in either written or film form. If I read only the last 10 or so November entries from someone's diary or journal, how will that shape my view of that person? Would I form a different image than if I read, say, only the April entries? What if I read the entire journal? I think if I ended up reading the November entries of someone who mourns a lost beloved person in November plus has uncomfortable memories of childhood Thanksgivings and suffers from SAD while living in a rainy climate, I'd "know" a different person than the July person who lives for getting out on the boat with friends and family, even though the two share the same body. How about if I read the November entries, my friend reads the July ones, and both of us meet the author in April? Might one of us say the author is exactly what I pictured, while the other shakes her head in surprise? I think so, although it's possible that scenario is more likely if we meet the author in July or November.

If I'm the author of the journal, how do I react? Do I know these readers have only had 1 month of every year and that they had different months? If I met this readers in November, would I be pulled more toward the November reader or repelled because the privacy invasion might be more obvious?

I'm too tired to think about this any more, and my typing mistake rate is going way up.