Journals: To Burn or Not to Burn?

[Sailor Kenshin]

I've been thinking about this after reading another thread here. Now I have two questions:

1) If you journal, why do you journal, to what purpose?

2) To those that journal, will you leave them for others to read after you die, or will you burn them?

I'm still considering my answer to the second question; what about you?

How timely. I just learned that a longtime pen pal, who contacted me through a pen magazine, has passed away. I still have many of his letters.

I never burnt a journal, though I had plenty of 'fireplace moments.' When I indulged in teenage or midlife whining, that was who and what I was at the time.

When reading my mother's journals, I gained an understanding of certain things. Journaling must run in the family.

And I have too many of them: newly-rediscovered Morning Pages (from Julia Cameron, which I retitled The Inky Pages; my regular daily, which gets ignored now that I'm doing the Inky Pages; Deep Burning Questions; Movie/book/ink reviews; Memorable Writing Examples...and probably a half-dozen I'm forgetting.

Ur riterz cramp, I ha demz. O welz.

I do think of combining them all, but the Inky Pages absolutely must be on a cheap spiral notebook in black ink. Maybe the rest of them can be combined. Someday.

Thanks for starting the topic, V.