Post about yourself; teach me about myself

Ernie the Attorney muses today about his motives for posting about personal topics. Blogger, know thyself; Reader, find something better to do. He concludes that he doesn't necessarily have any explanations for many of his decisions about which stories to tell, particularly in those posts that he calls "self-referential."

I have a blog and you don’t. Let’s say we meet. You tell me you’ve read my blog, and you ask me about one of my ‘personal observation’ posts. At some point I come to understand that you have read a lot of my blog, obviously trying to get a sense of who I am. Lately, this has happened a lot. …

… Every once in a while, in one of these strange encounters, the person will hesitantly tell me that they have a question. Invariably what they will focus on is how I often speak freely about certain personal observations. They just don't quite understand that. Aren't I afraid of the consequences? How can I be so open? That's what intrigues them.

Ernie discusses a theory that some of his decisions about what to write might be based on unconscious mental processes that he isn't really in a position to articulate. He concludes with this advice for the reader:

… So feel free to comb through my weblog for clues and feel free to form judgments about my personality. Just don't ask me to explain why I am the way I am or why I talk about certain things. I really don't have a good answer. I'm flattered that you ask the question, but I politely suggest that there are more important questions for you to be asking. Aim your curiousity at something truly important, which is not certainly not me and my motivations.

If I were you I'd just go outside and enjoy the nice day. Or, even if it's not a nice day, then surely there's something more interesting to do than read my self-referential blog posts. Don't you think?

I don't spend time wondering why Ernie or other "self-referential" bloggers write what they do, but I am often glad that they choose to tell some personal stories. Sherry Fowler, for example, is one of my favorite bloggers because of how well she tells her stories. Her blog isn't even in the "Legal" category in my RSS reader, because her blog doesn't try to be about law. (Her blog focusing on professional life, however, is in the "Legal" category.)

When we first meet in online or physical space, we tend to label each other; in the United States, we most commonly choose labels associated with what we do for work. "Attorney" or "Lawyer," for example. But of course such labels tell us very little about the person so labeled. They're shorthand for general traits — stereotypes, at that, which may or may not express themselves in a particular individual.

Those "self-referential" posts with personal stories often tell me something about someone who would otherwise be just a name with a few labels attached. They put flesh on a skeleton, and a face on the flesh. When they appear in lawyer-blogs, they give me a sense of humanity in a profession that often tends to be bound up in formalities. They create people I respect rather than websites that I read. They often make me wish that I could write more personal posts.

But the "self-referential" posts I appreciate the most show me something about myself as well. Ernie, Sherry, and others have done just that on numerous occasions, and I thank them all.