#on journaling

[vesperalities]

good morning fellow journalers!

[yvernal]

On : Journaling

I've been writing for years.

Ten years, more or less.

I wrote a lot of things, from silly little stories in discarded school notebooks to academic essays for my studies. Worldbuilding notes on flying sheets, as I tentatively followed my History classes during my bachelor. Said notes for the aforementioned classes, three long years and more than a thousand hand-written pages.

I wrote fanfiction too, 13 notebooks full of sappy-crappy stories as an escape for a dry reality. Online then, weaving words in a foreign language, sentences thrown on a blank document page. An escape, then again, writing for myself but sharing to be seen. Drowning in self-made dreams, drafting stories of what could have been, of what should have been in order to escape a burdensome prison of flesh.

Yet, despite that, I never really tried journaling. Well, I sort of did, when my grandmother offered me this overly cliché pink diary with a heart lock. It's just that I had nothing constructive to say, per se.

"Me" back then was a shifting and unstable thing, already crumbling under expectations. Putting "Me" on a paper was an ordeal, unwelcomed and gruesome, scrapping at a thin veneer of self to discover there was nothing of importance under it.

Why bother, I then thought, when I have nothing interesting to say ? Days as bland as white bread and a personality pretty much the same... No one would read that, myself first.

I'm glad to say that I've grown since then.

I still think there's nothing of much importance about me. But that's okay.

Because I don't have to be something.

I don't even have to be someone.

Just being my small little self living my small little life is already more than enough. It's a gift in itself, even.

I am living a simple life. I have a simple job, simple hobbies, simple worries and small dreams. I don't need much nor do I crave much.

White bread might be bland, but it's comforting. It's a known value, a homely feeling, a satisfying snack. Eaten as is or topped with something, by yourself or shared with another.

I think journaling — or at least my journaling — should be like that.

Something small and simple, that you can nimble while commuting, or on the side of something else. Maybe it's a new taste for you, foreign yet welcoming. Maybe it's a fond memory, lingering nostalgia and sweet aftertaste. Maybe it's an everyday occurrence, a comfy habit to look forward to.

That's what I want my journaling to be.

Something that you can relate to, recognize yourself into. Because I am my little self, with a little life, simple job, simple worries, simple hobbies and small dreams.

Because I thread a path that you could walk too. Because you could share my thoughts, speak my words, dream my dreams. You could be on the other side of the planet, my next-door neighbor, that person scrolling aimlessly in the seat in front of me or the jogger I just crossed paths with.

We are small people in a big, big world.

Come eat with me, read with me, live with me.

It might be simple and not much, but it's hearty.

Bon appétit.

[ritterum]

i never keep journals, because the prospect of writing to a nameless "diary" strikes me as a waste of time when, honestly, not many details in my day matter that much, and the ones that are worth remembering will (more or less) be remembered. When I do keep journals, it is with the expectation that "posterity" will read them - whether I or another reader does not matter, just that it will be the future, and I must appear presentable. So I do! I tidy up my writing and censor my thoughts, and in so doing, violate the one inviolable precept of journaling, which is: Always Be Candid. When that happens, I can journal no more, so I put the book away until fancy (or hubris) strikes me anew, and I pick up the pen once more - rinse - repeat -.

Blogging isn't quite the same, though, is it? Blogging is long-form tweeting; it is screaming at the void, daring it to scream back in return; trying not to flinch when the reply you taunted shows up at your door, hatchet in hand. Blogging is the attempt to reach out to a world that only knows how to offer knives; it is grasping the proffered blade and hoping that it draws however little blood, because even that is better than the (nothing). Because what the (nothing) obscures, Reader, what fills that pregnant, ever-begetting silence is the harsh sting of your imagined judgment; the split-second decision whether the blog post was worth it, (was it not worth it, after all). O, how different your gaze is from posterity's, Reader! How vast the distances between! And all of it - almost all of it, (until it isn't) purely in - my - head -.

Do I write this now for the void, or for posterity? Reader, you (as always) decide -

[monstermonger]

~3 months traveling in my wife’s home-country -> 100 journal pages

[sleepy-bebby]

There’s a scientific journal called “Get me off Your Fucking Mailing List”.

In 2005, computer scientists David Mazières and Eddie Kohler created this highly profane ten-page paper as a joke, to send in replying to unwanted conference invitations. It literally just contains that seven-word phrase over and over, along with a nice flow chart and scatter-plot graph.

An Australian computer scientist named Peter Vamplew sent it to the International Journal of Advanced Computer Technology in response to spam from the journal. Apparently, he thought the editors might simply open and read it.

Instead, they automatically accepted the paper — with an anonymous reviewer rating it as “excellent” — and requested a fee of $150. While this incident is pretty hilarious, it’s a sign of a bigger problem in science publishing. This journal is one of many online-only, for-profit operations that take advantage of inexperienced researchers under pressure to publish their work in any outlet that seems superficially legitimate.

[thoughtportal]

the things that are reported matters. the language used matters. what is left out of the story matters.

[dsmsix]

thought I was muted and just had this exchange with a coworker on a zoom call

[vesperalities]

a journal is a vehicle for my sense of selfhood (susan sontag)

[lunamonchtuna]

— Sylvia Plath, quoting an acquaintance in ‘The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath’

[nephritebabie]

pick your poison LMAOOO

[shamebats]

Outraged by the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, a wilderness survival trainer spent years undercover climbing the ranks of right-wing militias. He didn’t tell police or the FBI. He didn’t tell family or friends. The one person he told was a ProPublica reporter.

This is such a wild story like holy shit dude

[melgillman]

Over on my patreon, I just posted a big batch of daily diary comics from my trip to Alaska for comics camp! Here's a freebie :)

[cassylvan]

i realized i never posted this on tumblr??? anyways here ya go tumblr

[viola-sororia]

first class news paleontologists never disappoint

[neurodivergenttales]

The ‘you’re mature for your age’ to sleeping with a bed full of plushies in your mid twenties pipeline is real