At first, writing an online diary seemed a lark. Close friends were doing it and I decided to see if I could do it too. I discovered that I could albeit a bit differently. For the most part, they record their thoughts about their day. I seem to focus on one aspect of my life at a time. �Under the Microscope� has turned out to be a more apt title than I anticipated.

When I started, I never dreamed I�d still be doing it almost every day months later. All the private diaries and journals I�ve ever started quickly degenerated into entries reading �nothing to report today.� Yet I�ve never not found something to write about here. Yesterday I realized why. Upon reading Kath McCall�s wonderfully articulate essay on �What We Do To Kids,� I realized that I thrive on the interaction. Other journals spark entries in my journal and my journal sparks entries in other journals.

My analytic mind occasionally turns on myself and looks at what I am doing and why but I don�t feel a great need to explain me to me. More often, my mind turns outward and picks things apart and I end up trying to explain other people (and less often things) to myself. When people explain themselves back in the guestbook or comment on my explanation of others, I can refine my analysis. Ideas, like people, need exercise. They need to push against themselves and other ideas. They need idea isometrics.

Some people write journals to clarify their thoughts or to record their lives. I do some of that. I also write for the audience and for the chance to be heard . My motives, however, have gotten more complex. I now participate here for the chance to read other�s ideas and take them further and for those times when someone reads my ideas and expands them.

Writing an online journal, unlike keeping a private diary, is interactive introspection. I can think. I just seem to need to do it in public.

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