Writing With Vulnerability

Each Monday evening during my organization class, we workshop the next blogpost to the class blog. I was the first student to post on the blog, so I can sit back and relax now, however I do enjoy workshopping ideas with the rest of my classmates and discussing their ideas. Tonight our conversation included the topic of needing to know your "position" in order to make a public post. I struggled with this a little too, the concept of posting something publicly that I haven't done a lot of research on. A classmate of mine shared her quandary of writing about a difficult topic both hard to write about and sensitive in nature, and what, if any, implications are there for writing something that we don't have data for? Since being in the HALE program, it has already been ingrained in me to CITE EVERYTHING. Not that I didn't do that before, but I have an aversion now to sweeping statements or random out of context facts. My knee jumps up and I think, "need to know the source, please" which could mean I simply don't have an opinion anymore about anything, or I'm much more sensitive and aware of what I say out loud.

I appreciated this conversation. It hit on some of my own insecurities about being publicly vulnerable. It also meant that when my classmates and I make public posts, we are opening ourselves up for public discourse, and this kind of discourse is indeed what we are here to do. To debate ideas, to talk about ideologies, to argue and push back. In addition to this public discourse, I also appreciate the forum for trying out ideas and practicing putting these ideas into words, regardless of how difficult or sensitive the topic. Be sure to continue to check the 991B blog post. The next post will be coming out later this week.