[HN Gopher] Observations on 6 Years of Journaling
___________________________________________________________________
Observations on 6 Years of Journaling
Author : memorable
Score : 89 points
Date : 2022-06-22 05:26 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (herman.bearblog.dev)
(TXT) w3m dump (herman.bearblog.dev)
| djhworld wrote:
| Seeing this post reminded me I did take a stab at the daily
| journaling last year, using this tool https://github.com/jrnl-
| org/jrnl
|
| At some point I stopped which was a shame, but what's funny is
| all the journal entries are still there and I've just been
| reading them - lots of wonderful memories and snapshots of stuff
| going on in my mind at the time.
|
| Just need the motivation to pick it up again!
| em-bee wrote:
| i started writing a travel diary when i got my first portable
| notebook 20 years ago. (a sony picturebook, small enough to carry
| around everywhere easily)
|
| initially i only intended to write when i was away from home, but
| as my life turned into moving to other countries to live and work
| there, i realized that i should be writing every day.
|
| the main purpose for me is to write down interesting experiences
| and memories and less about feelings. the same way i take photos.
| because there is something i want to remember. that means on most
| days the entries are short, but when something exceptional
| happens, then i take it down in as much detail as i can.
| throwaway98797 wrote:
| the key is to write how you feel not document what happened
|
| as someone who has journaled on and off for 20 years seeing my
| emotions evolve has been quite valuable
|
| also start today. start right fucking now. it's never too late.
| Reflecticon wrote:
| Could you elaborate why it's important and how a typical
| emotional journal entry would look like?
| projektfu wrote:
| Is anyone here with ADHD able to maintain a journal? My journal
| has little weeklong attempts every 6-10 months. Any secrets?
| l33tbro wrote:
| I've not been diagnosed, but I think my problem with
| 'journalling' is that it is far too rigid and structural.
|
| When I put pen to paper in the morning, I am letting my
| absolute freak flag fly and engage in something that is much
| more akin to automatic writing.
|
| While journalling no doubt seems to work well for others, I get
| so much more out of unleashing a torrent of blab or blah and
| just seeing what meaningful stuff pops up. It is just a
| guaranteed way for the fog to lift from my brain, as I quickly
| get to the heart of what's bothering me.
|
| The only thing is posterity. Once I'm done that paper is pretty
| much burnt after reading - as nobody needs to see that shit.
| That means it's a little more difficult to track internal
| progression or regression.
|
| Meditation and qigong were great with slowing things right down
| as well - but not as immersive and longer lasting than brain
| purging.
| mwattsun wrote:
| Journaling for me is an essential tool for emotional regulation
| and self-knowledge. This wasn't always the case because I learned
| in school to write for someone else. If I'm not writing for
| someone else then who am I writing for? I'm writing for my future
| self, but who is that? My future self is determined by the
| thoughts and experiences I am having now, so if I can understand
| through writing where I am now in the world then I can make
| better decisions about where I am going. In effect, writing is a
| way of programming myself. If I am to be captain of my own ship
| then I need to keep a log to better learn from past experiences.
| I've found writing is the best way to collaborate with other
| parts of myself as Huxley says
|
| _If you correct your mind, the rest of your life will fall into
| place._
|
| - Lao Tzu
|
| _It doesn 't need to be imagined, it needs to be written down_
|
| - Philip Glass
|
| _I like the feeling of words doing as they want to do and as
| they have to do_
|
| - Gertrude Stein
|
| _My fate cannot be mastered; it can only be collaborated with
| and thereby, to some extent, directed. Nor am I the captain of my
| soul; I am only it 's noisiest passenger_
|
| - Aldous Huxley
|
| _Good composition is like a suspension bridge; each line adds
| strength and takes none away... Making lines run into each other
| is not composition. There must be motive for the connection. Get
| the art of controlling the observer - that is composition_
|
| - Robert Henri
|
| _Memory is the major element in cognition, in everything that we
| call the humanities. If you cannot remember, then you can 't
| think and you can't imagine, and you can't write, and you can
| hardly read_
|
| - Harold Bloom
|
| _The characters in my novel are my own possibilities that were
| not realized_
|
| - Milan Kundera
| stryan wrote:
| >If you correct your mind, the rest of your life will fall into
| place. > - Lao Tzu
|
| FYI, I hate to be that guy, but I don't believe that's a Laozi
| quote. It doesn't really sound like anything in the Dao De
| Jing, and google seems to link it to a English translation of a
| supposed oral tradition of the Huahujing, that doesn't seem to
| have anything to do with the actual pieces of the Huahujing
| we've found.
| cadr wrote:
| Thank you for those! They are fantastic!
| mwattsun wrote:
| Thanks. Part of my journaling is collecting quotes I come
| across if they are particularly thought provoking or
| mysterious. I forgot one of the best. I know it's _the best_
| because Eastern and Western thought both start here:
|
| _Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom_
|
| - Aristotle
| 3-cheese-sundae wrote:
| How do you deal with the privacy implications of noting your
| deepest thoughts, insecurities, actions, desires, etc. in a
| presumably single place?
| oskhib wrote:
| I had that concern when I first started journalling, and
| invented a secret script (neography). I stuck to it a week or
| two before I realised nobody really even cares about most of
| the stuff I write about, so why make the effort. Mind you,
| I'm young and don't live with a partner, so I don't have to
| worry about them finding my journal.
| reidjs wrote:
| Keep it offline or realize that probably nobody cares about
| reading your journal anyways
| sporksmith wrote:
| In my journaling I realized the process of writing was
| valuable, but I rarely referred back to anything. So for
| personal / stream of consciousness things I either write on
| paper and put it in the shred pile, or to something like an
| ephemeral vim buffer.
|
| For when I'm feeling very self conscious I have a script that
| turns off echoing to the terminal and streams everything I
| write to the clipboard (in case I decide I want to
| review/save after all)
| tarmon wrote:
| It's not perfect but encryption should keep most people
| honest assuming you practice good opsec.
| galaktus wrote:
| The emotional regulation part looks promising to me. How does
| that kind of journaling look like to help with that?
| atoav wrote:
| In the qorst situations of my life.when I felt alone,
| devastated, forgotten, hurt I always started to write a
| letter to someone, either my partner, the person who hurt me,
| a good friend, whatever. Where I nwed ro explain the whole
| mess I am in, why I feel the way I feel, what got me to that
| point how I imagine it will go from here, what I actually
| want -- this kind of stuff.
|
| I never sent one of those letters. The writing alone made me
| feel so much better or gave me a resolve to act that the
| letter would have been outdated by the point I sent it.
| nh23423fefe wrote:
| not op but, I consider the journaling I do to be
| complementary to the mediation i do. mediation trains the
| regulation and journaling gives the vocabulary and memory for
| the present experience
| sieste wrote:
| I communicate (read, write, speak, think) in two different
| languages, and often find it hard to pick a language for
| journaling. Sometimes I start with one and randomly switch to the
| other language. Does anyone else have this experience?
| nestorD wrote:
| I see it as a strength, some thoughts come easier in one
| language rather than the other so I pick the path of least
| resistance. It keeps me in the flow.
|
| It might also happen when writing to other people, in which
| case I will come back to the text and self-translate it once I
| have put all of my thoughts into words.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Thursday, June 23 1326, Hacker News
|
| I journal as well, and have for the past 15 years with varying
| frequency. I used for force long form entries and coherent prose.
| Now, I do somewhat what the author does: I just start writing.
| Timestamp, location, and what I'm doing currently. Then whatever
| pops to top of mind, then bullet point my past
| week/month/whatever. It may then turn into a to-do list for work
| or home. It may be dreams of things I want to do in the next
| month or two. Writing it all down takes it out of my head for
| just long enough to let the anxiety go.
|
| It's a great way to remember things, a great way to "rubber-duck"
| and realize what's important to you. And very occasionally, I
| look back on them years later and remember things I'd completely
| forgotten about! -L
| Hextinium wrote:
| I do a similar thing, just listing off the date and time and
| just kinda writing whatever comes to mind.
|
| If I may ask what does the 1326 come from? It's like a year but
| I cant recognize the system.
| NortySpock wrote:
| 24 hour clock, perhaps?
| Hextinium wrote:
| Oh that actually makes a lot of sense, I guess I just
| couldn't understand that out of context.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Before I blockquoted it, it really looked like a date.
|
| Yes, it's 24 hour time.
| 3qz wrote:
| > Whether it be meditation or prayer, the act of articulating
| your thoughts to your deity is a great way to come to divine
| realisations. In essence, it's rubber-ducking with God.
|
| GOOD point
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-06-23 23:01 UTC)