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Thread: Who Reads Your Journals?

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    Default Who Reads Your Journals?

    As a spin-off from the thread about permanent inks:

    When family and/or friends come to your house for, say, a holiday feast, does anyone ask to read your journals? And, after reading one, do they ask to read another one?
    "Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little." -Epicurus-

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    Senior Member AzJon's Avatar
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    Default Re: Who Reads Your Journals?

    Quote Originally Posted by Paddler View Post
    When family and/or friends come to your house for, say, a holiday feast, does anyone ask to read your journals? And, after reading one, do they ask to read another one?
    No. To do such a thing would be profoundly grotesque.

    I sincerely don't understand the question, because the mere notion is absurd.

    Perhaps I would ask to see/read a friend's recently published book, but I would never ask to read their journal. What a perverse concept.

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    Default Re: Who Reads Your Journals?

    No, no one has ever asked to read one of my journals.

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    Default Re: Who Reads Your Journals?

    Quote Originally Posted by Paddler View Post

    When family and/or friends come to your house for, say, a holiday feast, does anyone ask to read your journals? And, after reading one, do they ask to read another one?
    No-one would ever ask to read one of my journals. The second question would never apply.

    I don't even foist my holiday photos onto my family or friends.
    Regards, Chrissy | My Review Blog: inkyfountainpens

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    Default Re: Who Reads Your Journals?

    No-one reads my personal journals but they do like browsing through my commonplace books, my travel journals and my art journals. Most of those I’m happy to share but a few of the more introspective ones I keep to myself and my family/friends wouldn’t ask to read them anyway.

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    Default Re: Who Reads Your Journals?

    I don't foist my journals on anybody. I mentioned them once and somebody asked to see them. That is fine by me; I don't introspect on paper or any other place except my head.
    I keep:
    A garden journal
    A cat journal
    A musical gig journal
    One for wilderness canoe trips
    One for sea kayak trips
    One for whitewater rafting
    One for miscellaneous events, diatribes, and rants
    An Army journal
    Journals from gradeschool, highschool, and college
    Work journals
    Fishing trip journals

    Cousins (and now great cousins) ask to read them and sit in a corner after a feast and read. After I fall off the twig, I don't think my journals will be tossed in the Dumpster right away. I have learned to use good paper and pens and durable inks.
    "Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little." -Epicurus-

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    Default Re: Who Reads Your Journals?

    That is fine by me; I don't introspect on paper or any other place except my head.
    One for miscellaneous events, diatribes, and rants


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    Default Re: Who Reads Your Journals?

    My journals are usually labelled such as "Fishing tackle log", "Football scores", "curtain colour ideas" so nobody bothers (yes, I've checked).

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    Default Re: Who Reads Your Journals?

    Most of my writing is just me exploring thoughts and ideas, and is done on a4 pads. They are meaningless to anyone else, and if anyone else asked to read them, I would say no.

    Even I don't read more than three or four pages back, as that's what I was thinking a while ago, not what I'm thinking now. When the book/pad is filled, I throw it away and start another. It has served it's purpose, but is of no more use to me than used toilet roll. Both of them get covered in shit, disposed of, and I move on with life. I also don't want either being surveyed by anyone else.

    I don't care what I ate last week, or what I was thinking last week. I don't care what the weather was like, or what happened in the garden, or what two neighbours were bickering about. I won't care next week either. That was then, this is now.

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    Default Re: Who Reads Your Journals?

    i journal in the form of haiku and other short, hokku-like poems. then i bore the living daylights out of my family by force-feeding them my products at the dinner table. when i volunteer to read "a poem or two" outside the family people are usually replying very kindly "oh thanks, but that's not necessary"; and since nobody other than myself can read my scrawl, my journals remain perfectly encrypted and unread. every few years or so i throw them into the woodstove, vowing that from now on i'll either not journal or write better stuff that's actually of interest to someone (hasn't happened yet)

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    Default Re: Who Reads Your Journals?

    Quote Originally Posted by Wuddus View Post
    Most of my writing is just me exploring thoughts and ideas, and is done on a4 pads. They are meaningless to anyone else, and if anyone else asked to read them, I would say no.

    Even I don't read more than three or four pages back, as that's what I was thinking a while ago, not what I'm thinking now. When the book/pad is filled, I throw it away and start another. It has served it's purpose, but is of no more use to me than used toilet roll. Both of them get covered in shit, disposed of, and I move on with life. I also don't want either being surveyed by anyone else.

    I don't care what I ate last week, or what I was thinking last week. I don't care what the weather was like, or what happened in the garden, or what two neighbours were bickering about. I won't care next week either. That was then, this is now.
    Such an attitude makes me wonder if the gift of life wasn't wasted here. Makes me feel very sad the singularity of life could be treated so cavalierly.

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    Default Re: Who Reads Your Journals?

    Reading this thread made me think about my approach to "journaling."

    While I've done a great many things in life, behind it all has always been a writer. I've done newspaper and magazine work mostly, book editing for a while. I think that has shaped and defined my philosophy on writing, i.e. publication is the end product. I spend time using my fountain pens to write trivial nonsense in "journals," but it has no intent toward publication. It also contains nothing I would find incriminating in case other eyes ever came upon them. Nevertheless, as I said in the permanent ink thread, I value the permanence so I use inks that give me that. When I get serious about writing something it's with a view toward publication.

    These days I publish only in my little Web log corner of the world:

    https://deadreckoning1.wordpress.com/

    It's open to the world, and anyone who chooses may read it. Almost no one does, and I don't really care one way or the other. I devote the same craft and care to entries there that I used in my magazine writing days. But it turns out that's not really a "journaling."

    What this thread has made me think is that my photo site is my real journaling. This is a visual record of my world and how I see it. For myself, I organize it chronologically, so as I scroll through various galleries I see an historical progression. Each image provides a story of where I was, what I was doing, what I found important (worth making an image). The images are uniquely mine, just as any written journal would be. Since I no longer sell photographic services, I don't have to create a disciplined "portfolio" that demonstrates my capabilities. The images are thoroughly eclectic, just as anyone's life would be. This is also open to the public; anyone can view this visual journal; very few people ever do. Fine with me. I often find myself on a cold winter night with a cup of hot chocolate and the galleries of images I can review as a visual journal; this is very personally satisfying.

    https://wetracy.smugmug.com/

    Seems like a funny realization for a fountain pen site!

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    Default Re: Who Reads Your Journals?

    Quote Originally Posted by Brilliant Bill View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Wuddus View Post
    Most of my writing is just me exploring thoughts and ideas, and is done on a4 pads. They are meaningless to anyone else, and if anyone else asked to read them, I would say no.

    Even I don't read more than three or four pages back, as that's what I was thinking a while ago, not what I'm thinking now. When the book/pad is filled, I throw it away and start another. It has served it's purpose, but is of no more use to me than used toilet roll. Both of them get covered in shit, disposed of, and I move on with life. I also don't want either being surveyed by anyone else.

    I don't care what I ate last week, or what I was thinking last week. I don't care what the weather was like, or what happened in the garden, or what two neighbours were bickering about. I won't care next week either. That was then, this is now.
    Such an attitude makes me wonder if the gift of life wasn't wasted here. Makes me feel very sad the singularity of life could be treated so cavalierly.
    Can I question exactly why I shouldn't have lived?

    Is it because I live in the present moment, and not spend hours escaping from who and what is around me, and that I could be engaging with right now?

    Is it because I don't waste time every day, writing stuff that will never be read, in the vein hope that my existence will somehow be extended by leaving some written record of when my strawberries fruited this year, or who parked too close to my car door, so I had to climb in through the passenger side?

    Or is it simply that I don't like doing what you like doing, and am capable of thinking for myself, and chosing my own priorities in life, and therefore should be shot?
    Last edited by Wuddus; October 2nd, 2018 at 03:28 AM.

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    Default Re: Who Reads Your Journals?

    Most of the time, not even me.

    Aside from work and creative efforts, I keep notebooks for two main reasons: to remember and to reflect. If I don’t need the reminder, it goes unread. Similarly, once a reflection is done, I don't revisit it. It's about process not product (and having abysmal handwriting is an effective deterrent to reading). The intention is not to leave something for posterity but to help me be more present, engaged, aware. Doesn’t always work, but there it is.

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    Default Re: Who Reads Your Journals?

    Quote Originally Posted by catbert View Post
    Most of the time, not even me.

    Aside from work and creative efforts, I keep notebooks for two main reasons: to remember and to reflect. If I don’t need the reminder, it goes unread. Similarly, once a reflection is done, I don't revisit it. It's about process not product (and having abysmal handwriting is an effective deterrent to reading). The intention is not to leave something for posterity but to help me be more present, engaged, aware. Doesn’t always work, but there it is.
    ... i think i can see that; for me the form of short, pointed poems brings moments and the contained events (often seemingly insignificant ones) into focus and helps me to see the threads in the tapestry... the process of writing them becomes linked to the event, highlighting apparent patterns and moods, and thus shapes the memory of these moments. probably prose forms could do the same thing, but the condensed poetic form helps me personally not to get sidetracked.

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    Default Re: Who Reads Your Journals?

    Quote Originally Posted by inklord View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by catbert View Post
    Most of the time, not even me.

    Aside from work and creative efforts, I keep notebooks for two main reasons: to remember and to reflect. If I don’t need the reminder, it goes unread. Similarly, once a reflection is done, I don't revisit it. It's about process not product (and having abysmal handwriting is an effective deterrent to reading). The intention is not to leave something for posterity but to help me be more present, engaged, aware. Doesn’t always work, but there it is.
    ... i think i can see that; for me the form of short, pointed poems brings moments and the contained events (often seemingly insignificant ones) into focus and helps me to see the threads in the tapestry... the process of writing them becomes linked to the event, highlighting apparent patterns and moods, and thus shapes the memory of these moments. probably prose forms could do the same thing, but the condensed poetic form helps me personally not to get sidetracked.
    I'm normally quite terse, in speech and writing, so maybe a similar kind of compression and focus is going on. Maybe not.
    Occasionally the inner monologue gets a semi-illustrated treatment and becomes even less wordy.

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    Wink Re: Who Reads Your Journals?

    I don't, but I think most people would probably thank me if I did decide to write journals... it would save them having to listen to my 'thoughts' instead!

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    Default Re: Who Reads Your Journals?

    I've been asked. I learned to say, "You keep a journal and let me read it, then you can read mine." Not to be a bitch about it but to make the point that conversations between people are different from interior monologues. If I would have to justify something I've blurted onto a page-as-extension-of-my-mind, then quid pro quo, baby.

    Having said that... 1) I started keeping a commonplace notebook, and I'm happy to share that (and preen a little, cos I like my handwriting, and I like it when others like it and want to see more of it), and 2) a few years ago, having amassed more than a hundred notebooks of monologue, I began the Notebook Lobotomy Project(TM). Shredding pages and pages of nonsense helped me understand a few things, especially... what I like remembering (I do like remembering the name of that restaurant and the weather and daylight on what day, oh it was Autumn and not Spring), details which are easily and BRIEFLY kept in an annual diary. I'm also learning what I remember without journals/notebooks.

    Actually, memory is an interesting subject, on its own and vis-a-vis mindfulness (the present).

    There are some rare types who can remember all the details of their days going back years and years. Mention a date and they can tell you what they wore, what they ate, what happened. It sounds like a double life: the present life and the past life being lived simultaneously. Fascinating. It sounds like a kind of torture, even without the ability to forget the bad things.

    I mean, memory is malleable. That's its kindness.

    But it's good to have an accurate (if not precise) accounting of past events. I've been learning about the dynamics of a very important relationship that I had had no idea of at the time -- and the perspective is both revelatory and helpful.

    But does it even matter? One just moves on. There's no other option, Well, I suppose if one resists, one gets pulled along, anyway, regardless of kicking and screaming and insisting that events happened in a particular way, but it's irrelevant, cos TICK TOCK and every day... the relentless onslaught of decisions and interactions and hopes and reality in one's face! Whether one pays attention or not.

    So. Yeah. I've stopped writing in notebooks so much and scribble scribble on notepads. What I think is important (for instance, bike ride, distance) gets noted in a pocket-size yearly diary (day-per-page). The monkey mind monologue gets the shredder. The excerpts or details from articles (like the memory one (people with extraordinarily-detailed memories)) go in the commonplace notebook.

    I've moved around a lot. A LOT. And if I keep journals as evidence of my time on earth for my own pleasure... so what? I take pleasure in reading about other people's time on earth, too. I like stories. I like gatherings where people discuss difficult subjects (remember when the weather was about the only polite subject? Hahaha.), but the most memorable are the ones where that guy (e.g.) recounted that incident about his childhood dog and everyone laughed cos he was a good storyteller. Those moments count, too. In my book. Where I keep them.
    _____________
    To Miasto

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    Default Re: Who Reads Your Journals?

    Interesting your notes on memory, I've been dipping into writing my first attempt at a novel - it is amazing what i can remember long term, and lose short term - though, i think, a lot comes down to trying or not.

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    Default Re: Who Reads Your Journals?

    Quote Originally Posted by Brilliant Bill View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Wuddus View Post
    Most of my writing is just me exploring thoughts and ideas, and is done on a4 pads. They are meaningless to anyone else, and if anyone else asked to read them, I would say no.

    Even I don't read more than three or four pages back, as that's what I was thinking a while ago, not what I'm thinking now. When the book/pad is filled, I throw it away and start another. It has served it's purpose, but is of no more use to me than used toilet roll. Both of them get covered in shit, disposed of, and I move on with life. I also don't want either being surveyed by anyone else.

    I don't care what I ate last week, or what I was thinking last week. I don't care what the weather was like, or what happened in the garden, or what two neighbours were bickering about. I won't care next week either. That was then, this is now.
    Such an attitude makes me wonder if the gift of life wasn't wasted here. Makes me feel very sad the singularity of life could be treated so cavalierly.
    Oh Bill, you make the nihilist in me chuckle.

    It is possible for life to have meaning, profound meaning, without documenting it. If not giving a hoot about documenting one's existence is "cavalier" I would shudder to think what you would label the more debauchery filled stretches of my life have been.

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