Your life would not make a good book.

Don't even try.

Yes, this is going to be another quick post where I talk about something that annoys me.

Every so often I read people's posts on various websites, and the thing I see over and over again is people talking about their daily lives. Do you know how interested I am to read about your daily life on the internet? Astonishingly not.

The thing about daily life that we all understand until the opportunity to ramble uninterrupted presents itself, is that daily life is really boring. It's mundane, and unless you're off having some kind of adventure, I don't care what you do every day, and neither does the majority of anyone else. If I know about your daily life, it should be because I either spend a significant amount of time with you, or we talk one on one about our lives. Not because you feel the need to share with your eight hundred best friends online what you do all day, especially when what you do all day is both boring and unproductive.

I read a quote somewhere, probably by George Bernard Shaw or some such, that said "most of us live lives of noisy desperation," and I think that characterizes a lot of online culture. We like to shout ourselves into significance to a largely indifferent universe, but the thing is, you don't get to be significant simply by existing or exclaiming your existence, and you shouldn't need other people to validate your existence.

Also, does it unsettle anyone else how easy we make stalking? There should be some reserve about telling the very public internet about where you go, what you do, and anything else that would make it very easy to keep track of you in a not okay way. The only people that should know a lot about your daily life are the people active in it.

THERE IS NOTHING ENDEARING ABOUT STALKING. IT'S TERRIFYING.

What is it with everyone romanticizing stalking? There is nothing lovable about being followed home, watched incessantly, "loved from afar," or whatever. Sleep-watching too. Those are all grounds for getting a restraining order, or pepper spray, or a body guard. Not for warm fuzzy, princess, idiot feelings. Don't feel special, feel stalked.

You notice how that term is also used for predators? That are hunting prey? For violent consumption and amusement? Yeah...

Anyway, there's this quote about your life never making a good book, and I agree with that emphatically. You notice how when I talk about my life it's in the context of what it made me think of, or how it relates to this thing that I'm talking about? Yeah. That's as relevant as my life ever is on the internet. Unless your life is extraordinary, there is no reason for you to treat it that way. No one wants to know the floor plan of your house, or your pedigree, or what you got for your birthday, or all your favorites, or whatever else unless they ask for it directly (and if they do, you may wanna think about whether or not you really want to answer O.o), so until then, why bother sharing all that nonsense? Keep it to the random thoughts that pop into your head, and share them fearlessly and tactlessly with whoever has the time to waste pretending to care.

And that's love for you, my hypothetically dedicated readers. Or just Taryn (actual love!). Either way.

Anyway, just some things I was thinking about this morning before work.