Why I Journal
My journal will have its fortieth anniversary this year. Why have I kept at it all this time?
“Fortunately, you don’t have to know exactly what you write for, yet. Just do it.
Things get in the way, and most of them are called ‘computers’. Because you sit to write and you start to ‘research’. Don’t fall for it.” -- Steve Budden Jr. typewriter guy
July 29th of this year will mark the fortieth anniversary of my journal.
I’ve kept a journal almost daily, save for a couple of years in which I did not write for a few odd months. That’s it. Otherwise, there’s a continuity that runs from this very morning back to July 29th, 1983.
It's difficult to estimate the number of pages in the dozens of paperbound volumes from that date through the early 90s when I started writing on a computer. I’ve kept my journal digitally now for most of the past thirty years.
Lately, I’ve written entries longhand on a Remarkable2 tablet, then auto-converted my handwriting to text. It works handily and is the best of both words. My handwritten volumes have often exceeded two hundred pages a year as I strived for two pages per day. If I were to print them, they would take up more than a full shelf on my bookcase.
So, what drives me? And who am I writing for?
This essay is a different kind of thing. I imagine someone (you) reading it. It’s deliberately public, shared with the intent to answer questions for myself that might also help you understand your own motivations. But journaling is different.
I was curious, so I asked ChatGPT for the top ten reasons that motivate people to keep journals, and here’s what I got.
Self-reflection
Emotional release
Stress management
Goal setting and tracking
Memory preservation
Creativity and self-expression
Problem-solving
Personal growth and development
Clarifying thoughts and ideas
Accountability and habit tracking
Each of those reasons has motivated me at one point or another.
I was inspired to start keeping a journal inspired by a girlfriend who kept what she called a “diary.” Journal writers always insist on a big difference.
Again, ChatGPT to the rescue:
“A journal is a structured record of personal thoughts and experiences, often aimed at self-improvement. A diary is a more spontaneous and narrative-based account of daily events and emotions, serving as a private outlet for self-expression. Journals are intentional and goal-oriented, while diaries are subjective and unstructured.”
I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on that distinction in the comments.
Maybe I started as a diarist, writing down the details of my day and my relationship until it imploded in the course of a single phone conversation, which thanks to my “diary” I know was 8:30 p.m. on November 18th of 1983.
But who are my journals for? I can’t imagine anyone would want to read them. When I wrote my memoir covering the years 1972-2002, I wasn’t interested other than for quick fact-checking.
I have the print volumes in the house now, where I brought them only for their photo opp, but I’ll soon take them back to the storage unit where they seem to belong. My children are too young to read them, but would I ever want them to know what a jerk I was at age 20? My spouse, I’m sure has already guessed. If I wasn’t misogynistic at that age, I was at least selfish and self-possessed. I wasn’t a bad person; I was just full of shit.
That was the 1980s. I continued my journal in the 90s and wrote during periods of liberal alcohol consumption, wine, and whiskey, often writing at bars expostulating about whatever came to mind, my self-importance bloated by drink. That stuff is embarrassing, even if the prose may have sometimes been passable. It's the content, not the style that concerns me.
Gone are the days I thought I might be famous someday and my journals might be a resource for anyone other than me. It’s clear now that most of what I’ve written in them is not only pedestrian but probably annoying.
The decades wore on and I just kept writing. Could journaling be addictive, I wonder? (See my earlier discussion of habit vs addiction in my Substack on inspiration.)
Since I can’t answer who my journals are for, they must be for me. My top three reasons for continuing the practice might be:
To capture what's going on to aid in future recollection.
To check my progress against my goals, and
To have a dialog with myself to figure out the answers to life's tricky questions.
That said, I’ve spent a lot of time venting in my journals, another reason I don't feel anyone else should read them. I write things I would never share with other people. It's a safe space, a place I can tell the truth, and find out how I feel, yet continue to soldier on as if I’d kept things to myself, so to speak, but still feel the relief that comes from self-expression.
In the late 80s, I showed up at a girlfriend’s apartment in Milwaukee to find the stuff I had been keeping at her place packed in grocery sacks and left by the curb with a note about “how bad it feels to find out how someone really feels from ‘other people.’” Only later did I find out it was because she'd read my journal. A word to the wise, don't read anyone’s journal surreptitiously unless you are prepared for what you might find in it.
It makes me wonder if there wouldn’t be a market for a hermetically sealable journaling device to keep prying eyes off them for 100 years after the writer of said words has died.
Gone are the days I thought I might be famous someday and my journals might be a resource for anyone other than me. It’s clear now that most of what I’ve written in them is not only pedestrian but probably annoying.
But I soldier on, churning out one or two pages a day. It's important enough to me I’m not willing to let it go, even on days I am so swamped I can’t get to it until afternoon or evening.
Writing my journal, I notice after a few minutes, I start to breathe easier. Writing is a meditation, relaxing, grounding, a way of saying, once again: Here I am. I'm still here.