Last week Ronni started a new blog, A Sense of Place, so that she could write about more personal things, specifically about being forced to leave her Greenwich Village home of more than 20 years. As I've always found Ronni's writing to be very intimate, I didn't understand her reasoning and said so. However, I do understand the need to put different faces to the world. This is simply an extension of the old writer's rule to address your audience. Knowing that my gardening audience is not likely to be interested in learning kanji, and that the people struggling with me to learn Japanese probably don't care about my battles against spring cankerworms, I keep them separate. Some people can keep their worlds integrated, but separation helps me focus. I get into gardening-mode, or Japanese-mode, or musing/ranting-mode. And for the people like me who are interested in all these things, well, they know where to find me.

So I'm excited about Ronni's new blog, and a little envious. (I'm always itching to start new blogs, but they would suffer from my mikka bouzu complex.)

But Ronni's reply made me aware that my concept of what is personal differs from hers. Why do people in general value emotional intimacy more than intellectual intimacy? Why is emotional intimacy is considered more personal? Isn't this just another F-type bias? Would I rather share my feelings or my thoughts? You know the answer.

I use feelings as a starting point to jump-start the brain. Those sharp jolts to the senses get the mind whirring. I'm never so happy as when I'm ferreting out an idea from a quagmire of emotion.