My Blog

Joan
Didion once wrote about how, at a very young age, she was forced to form a
habit which she later on credit as the one thing that got her to professional
writing. In her article, On Keeping a Notebook, she recalled that
as a young kid, she was given a notebook so she could sit still while her
mother was doing other things. Other
children her age at that time would have preferred toys, but the notebook
worked out perfectly for Joan. It is
probably the solitude the activity requires that drove her to opine that
keepers of notebooks are lonely individuals.

How Joan discovered keeping a
notebook is exactly the same way how I got acquainted with journaling. The time I got into writing couldn’t have
come at a more opportune time than in my adolescence when I was painfully shy
and dangerously insecure. Yes, writing
shielded me from the loneliness I felt at that time, but after journaling for
almost half my life, I realized that keeping a notebook isn’t only for lonely
individuals: I’ve long reconciled with those personal issues that made me
miserable, yet I still continue to maintain a journal. For me, journaling is the best writing
activity I have ever done in my life.

First of all, journal writing is
a very personal activity. I do not have
to share it with anybody, so I do not have to concern myself with the mechanics
of writing—grammar, spelling, etc. More
than that, I can write my personal thoughts on some things without running the
risk of being laughed at, or worse, judged. Furthermore, I can write about some things I may not be privy on sharing
with other people, thinking my ideas too trivial or personal.

Second, journal writing allows
me to preserve some precious memories—they may be sad or happy. I always find it rewarding to rummage through
my old notebooks and read entries that bring me back to how things happened in
my life. I totally agree with Annie
Dillard when she wrote that we need to write “to rescue the beauty of
experience form the destructiveness of change.”

Lastly, journal writing serves
some kind of a practice for me. I am a
firm believer that writing is a skill and that the more I write, the more
natural writing will be for me. I know
for a fact that writing is a skill, and so if I want to improve, the best way I
could do it is through constant practice.

There have been many writing
activities that I have found fun and fulfilling, but none of them comes close
to the satisfaction I get from writing one entry in my journal. I guess, the joy of journaling is tops.