To Journal, or Not to Journal

/ cagedunn

That is the question.

Life is a bumpy road. That’s true for most of the moments of a life, but this period of time has me jumping from moment to moment like a critter caught in the instant before being hit by a spotlight — and waiting for the sound of a bullet.

The mind can’t take the constant pounding of information, fear, and disgust.

The latter is to all the people taking advantage of the situation and ripping off those who are stuck doing the right thing. Thieves, scammers, spitters, robbers (highway and any other form), hoarders, dividers, etc., etc.

It makes me sick.

And the incidents play in my head like a record player with the needle stuck in the centre – over and over and over, the sound of pain and distress leaks through the cracks.

I can’t take the constancy and consistency of all the pain of all the people.

So, I’m going to start a journal. I’ve done journals a few times in my life, but if this isn’t the best time to do it again – well, I’m a monkey’s pile of poo.

Of course, I can’t go to the shop to get a notebook, if I order online and wait for one — oh, no deliveries of non-essential items? —

Where and what to do to make a journal?

There are several old diaries, one or two days to a page, A4 and A5 sizes. They’ll do. Not much written in them, all-year diaries, too.

My new journal starts today: Day One of ‘Staying Sane in … [still thinking of what that last bit will be]’.

What are you doing to keep the head on the shoulders and not flying off into the neither-here-nor-there moments?

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Care to join me?

31 thoughts on “To Journal, or Not to Journal”

      • I hope that will work for you. It has been helpful for many for many years, to the point that that lady (Julia Cameron, I believe) who wrote the book about the artists way called them ‘morning pages’, as if she had invented writing in one’s journal, and endorsed them as a big deal. The few years when I avoided writing because of fear of lack of privacy, it really affected me for the worse.

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  2. Big yes to the journal idea but I guess I have always pretty much kept a journal, I just have gaps where I stop writing for a bit but I always go back.

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  3. I reckon it’s a great idea …there’s something meditative about writing with paper and pen, that no electronic surface can duplicate … I’m going with ‘Time of the Plague’ … it carries a certain whimsy whilst being dire at the same time. 🙂

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  4. I journalled like mad through my teens and twenties. I still have all those duo-tang notebooks, more than a dozen of them, but I don’t have the guts to read them. Meeting my immature self — a dreadful prospect. Maybe some day, but not now. These days, I have one of those lovely Moleskine notebooks, given to me by my colleagues when I retired. I use it to record things I don’t want to forget — titles and authors of books that sound interesting, ditto pieces of music. The occasional dream. Lists of things I absolutely must do. And when something really bothers me I thrash it out in the notebook, and yes, it helps a lot, either to come up with a plan or just to nail down the fretted thoughts.

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      • Have you heard about the robbers who ambushed a supermarket delivery van and stole everything? Or the bunch of young thugs who grabbed the shopping bags from an old lady’s arms as she walked home?
        I think my journal’s going to get stabbed a few times …

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      • The worst I’ve heard about in my part of the world was a couple buying up cases of hand sanitizer and reselling them on Amazon at inflated prices, and then bragging about their profits. Our PM has so far not invoked the Emergency Measures Act (formerly known as the War Measures Act). I figure he’s waiting until stuff like what you’ve described starts to happen widely. Looting, robberies, etc. Like 9/11, this is turning into one of those world-changing events. Let’s hope nothing more than paper gets stabbed as it unfolds.

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  6. Years before years before years ago I regularly kept a journal. It helped me through several personal and family crises. It helped me straighten my head, it helped me to understand some of the difficult concepts I then was studying. It helped make me what I am today. Thus I say… highly recommended 🙂

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  7. I would l;ove to be able to journal and l have lots of journals which l use for notemaking/taking but my handwriting is so appalling that l can’t read what l have written but worse than that can’t write what l want to.

    My HW has always been bad, since l was a kid in Australia and Malaysia when the teachers scolded me for it – but my eye to hand coordination is bad – of course all those many years later and receiving an Asperger’s dx and the dyspraxia one made everything click into place .. so now l journal if l need to with my computer.

    But l like journals.

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  8. I can’t quite find the right words to describe how I feel about what’s happening. Nothing I write or say seems adequate. A journal is a great way to say everything however silly or profound it may be!

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      • I journalled a lot in my 20s, but due to the folly of youth (or maybe just my all-of-life stupidity) i didn’t use code. I still have the notebook and read it not so long ago…ramblings of a girl who thought she loved a boy who treated her like shit. How embarrassing!! I’d best get rid of it before death or else my children will REALLY think I’m a loser 😀🤣

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