Welcome Co-Workers, Friends and Family

If you read a lot of weblogs and dig deep enough into them, you'll often find some admission that the weblog is a secret. You know what I mean:

"If my boss ever read what I write about his stupidity here, the jerk would fire me for sure, and it would be his loss because I'm the only one who keeps his incompetence from tanking the company"

"I can't tell my husband about this weblog, or he would find out about the affair I'm having with the neighbor's English sheepdog"

"Thank God my family doesn't know about this blog, because then I couldn't write about the emotional damage my mother inflicts on me each and every endless goddamn day of my miserable life."

Well, DebtorsPrison is a fully public blog, with friends, family and co-workers urged to visit and read. Not that I don't do it with a bit of trepidation. It's embarrassing to admit I have $22,826.32 in credit card debt. Debt is perhaps not so shameful a confession as it was a generation ago, but it is something which can make people question your values, your judgment and your sanity, not to mention the way they subtly clutch their pocketbooks a bit closer to their bodies when you draw near.

Of course, questioning our values, judgment and sanity is what DebtorsPrison is all about. Sharing my troubles gives me a framework for examining this consumer culture which engulfs us and constantly exhorts us to act with such heedless self-interest.

The more I share, the more I learn how common my plight is. I have built my debt largely on non-tangible lifestyle choices: travel, taking jobs with less pay, borrowing to help start my wife's business (Read More About How I Got Into Debt). Others have built up their debts one Cuisinart, CD boxed set and La-Z-Boy recliner at a time. Still others have been forced into debt by job loss or illness. And even those who have little or no debt seem to be worried about it happening to them.

So welcome all to DebtorsPrison. Thanks for reading and thanks for sharing. And no, it's not true I have another, secret weblog about my sex life....