Me and the diary

I can't remember when I first began writing a diary, must have been a long time ago, almost as soon as I could write sentences on my own.
It began with writing in the back of old note books, then graduated to formal printed 'diaries'- the kind that medical reps and insurance agents distribute for free- and my parents would pass on to me.  Much later I began to buy diaries to write in.
But, you wrote to clarify your own thoughts, never to share them with another person- more for yourself.
The only diary I ever shared in public was a film school (FTII, Pune, India), where we used to have to write about the movies we saw for the Film Appreciation course. Dear old Professor Satish Bahadur would glance at them, never really read but only make sure that we have had our share of the course work.
I did use Prof Bahadur's words of knowledge when writing on twitter- he said use the 'film diary ' to record your growth- I did that with twitter, recording the making of a documentary. Of course its a commissioned work, so one needs to be discreet.
Nowadays it seem the moment we write, its assumed that its meant to be public. I suppose that's why we use different words for this form- its a 'blog' not a 'diary'.
All of the public writing is a novelty to me, as much as 'sharing' your 'likes' on the multitude of social media that envelop our lives these days.
But this is the new way of life, like it or not.
So lets flow along and write and and hope for the best- that you won't become the laughing stock for friends and family.