Yesterday Jude posted about audience and blogging. Early this morning I wrote a long journal entry about this that went off on all kinds of tangents. That is one of the differences between writing to an audience and something private. The effort to be coherent, to say something meaningful, to be thoughtful. I am still trying to wrap my mind around what I want to say but here is some of it.
Accountability and participation. While we can make goals and live without sharing in such a public way, it is helpful to be able to put what we are doing out into the world: "I have this goal and I am showing up as a way to motivate me to keep trying."
Community. An audience often implies information flowing in one direction, a producer and a consumer. A presentation. A healthy community invites participation and conversation.
Teachers, mentors, facilitators, caregivers. To teach is often someone imparting information to an audience. The others involve a more complex relationship, one where there is a possibility of learning from each other. Participation comes up for me again.
Validation. This is the messy and emotional part about sharing (Alfie Kohn,"Five Reasons to Stop Saying Good Job"). We all appreciate a "good job" as human beings occasionally. Buying something that someone has made is a form of validation. It's hitting the "like" button. And it can become about popularity... sometimes that is necessary for survival in the society we live in.
When I consider it, I am not very interested in being part of an audience (but I am not judging people who choose that role, it is a way to participate). I want conversation, space to be curious, room to grow and be creative...