from: "Juniper Shadow" [email protected]
subject: Re: For my own edification
actually, i'm in this "diary" with two other of my friends, and we just write "entries" in it to entertain ourselves occasionally, write about something that we want to remember, or just vent. it's not really a diary in the sense of personal thoughts, secrets, etc. but even still it helps to just write out your thoughts every day. (therapy, hehe.)
as to the behaviorists, if they can pinpoint the stimuli for even the most basic "automaton" human reactions, kudos (hehe, vocab word!) to them, but i'll bet that humans are a little more complicated than that. if you wanna know my true opinion, ppl never make sense. and if it really is as extreme as that and the complexity of past behavioral, physiological, and environmental variables can ever account for the complexity of human action, well what better way to unravel the mysteries (oooh...) of this automaton behavior than to write in a diary? (haha, good luck unraveling any of our entries.)
well our diary wouldn't interest many who don't know us, or maybe some who think we're really just one confused girl, but at least i'm not writing in it mainly for others' benefit. Although knowing that certain people do read the diary does have an effect on what i'm willing to put down in it, the diary's basically just a way to ramble on in a way that we wouldn't be able to during the day.
half the things i do every day aren't critical to my survival, even remotely in the social or even academic sense, and they certainly don't bring me any pleasure. i guess a behaviorist would argue that these actions have been previously ingrained in me through exposure to, well, the usual. but honestly, i am not enjoying...this is starting to turn into an entry. geez it's so addictive. i'll stop now. bye, hope this helps (is this for some college thing????)
~G2~