Some reflections on journaling by hand every day for 8.5 years (and counting)
and on writing in general
Cross-posted from Twitter, where I originally posted it in June 2024.
I'm getting better at putting my stuff on Substack now, so I want to make sure it’s here as well for people who recently started following. As of the time of this repost, I’ve passed over 9 years of daily journaling and am even working on scanning them all. I’m doing this for digital back-up reasons and also because I want to feed all the entries into AI and see how good it is at therapy when given almost a decade of unfiltered personal context and thoughts. I don’t think anyone has done this yet, and I’m excited to see what happens.
There aren't that many things I've done that consistently for that long. It's probably tied with brushing my teeth or something else equally mundane, but unlike a hygienic chore that doesn't compound, writing has changed my life in major ways. Journaling has occasionally led to tweeting and tweeting has led to meeting all of you, making some wonderful friends, and even meeting my current partner. And those are just the easily observable changes. Just as precious is what writing has done for me internally—given me the space and tools to regulate my emotions, nurtured ideas in their earliest stages when they are most in need of care, and taught me how to make sense of the world (which always felt dizzying and overwhelming) on my own terms, at a pace and in a way that preserved my dignity and left me lighter at the end of the day. You know that quote, "the only way out is through"? Well it doesn't tell you *how* to go through, so you have to figure out the means yourself. One of the things that really worked for me was writing.
When I first started journaling, I was a depressed student having panic attacks and constant suicidal thoughts. My mind was a terrible place, and I was fully trapped in it, because I sure as hell wasn't in my body. I was sleeping 4 hours a night, overcommitted to academics and extracurriculars, and suffocating under the weight of others' (and my own) expectations.
I learned what a "bullet journal" was from Tumblr where girls would share photos of meticulously designed spreads decorated with gel pens, stickers, and washi tape. I thought it was a good way to stay organized, since my workload was so high at the time I could barely function from keeping track of all the things I needed to do. So I started writing to-do lists and daily schedules. I found this super practical and helpful, but over time I also added my inner thoughts, what I did that day, and quotes from books that inspired me.
I started writing down every thought and feeling that occurred to me, and it turns out my subconscious really needed that. It needed a place where it could run wild without any filter, so I would let it. I'd be having a mental breakdown, tears streaming down my face, pain bursting out the seams, scribbling crazed chicken scratch in my journal, because it kept me here. When I was wildly dissociating, the act of writing gave me an anchor. I could still be a part of "this" world, because whatever overwhelming emotion I was experiencing inside, whatever I wanted to repress or irresponsibly let loose, was acceptable outside of me, on these pages. It proved to be a healthy outlet for unhealthy impulses.
After a couple years of this, it was easy to pick up patterns in my mood, relationships, and thoughts. It's harder to deny you're deeply sad when you have years of journal entries saying so. Having a verifiable record of how you really felt at any given moment in time is great for reflection. I don't re-read my old entries as much as I used to, since there are more to go through now, but I do go back to reference specific events or periods if there's something I want to confirm.
Writing also taught me to sink deeper into the present moment. To write about something, you need to pay close attention to it. Because you're capturing a snapshot of a fleeting moment or feeling in the world, storing it, and reproducing it in words with a pen. If you don't pay very close attention to how the imprint rests crisply in your awareness, even more gets lost in translation across mediums. So you need to be present. To the wind on your cheeks, the chimes two houses down, the hunger that cuts a little. Say someone looked at you. How did they look at you? Was one eyebrow lifted? How big were their pupils? Did they blink? How long did they look at you before blinking? Hey, are you really here? Journaling is all a game of telephone. Are you listening to the message?
I became just a vessel. When I am faithfully reproducing an external event, even though it was perceived through my eyes uniquely, with yes, my own biases coloring the whole thing—I do not feel the weight of my own presence in transmitting it. There is just the perception. "This is what I saw" meets "This is what I want to live on from what I saw: what I found precious, or curious, or annoying. This is what moved me". Like netting a cluster of fish from a larger school that keeps swimming and swimming.
Another thing writing has taught me is how to think clearly, and for myself. I did not realize I had no original thoughts of my own until I started writing everything that came into my mind and realized that most of them were anxious ruminations or recycled arguments from ideologies that capitalized on my emotional vulnerabilities. If you do not know the source of your ideas, they are likely being twisted in translation and you are doing someone else's bidding. Writing taught me to trust my direct experience. I can read ideas, but I will not let them influence me before squaring up with my direct experience. If my experience is limited, I will get as close as I can to the experience of people who know more than I do, or try to see it for myself. Otherwise, you can end up 800 levels deep in a thought dungeon fighting a holy war against abstractions. You will feel alive this way, but burn up in the process. The fire has to be lit from within, shielded and whispering like a candle, to keep going.
I've arrived at a content relationship with journaling. I used to try to record every detail of my day. The conversations I had, the places I went, the weather. I was really afraid that if I didn't, the life I lived would just disappear without a trace. I was obsessed with leaving a legacy. The thought of that is silly now. I think it's great to make things that outlive you, especially if they are for the benefit of others. But the way you do it isn't through being neurotic about your own existence! I have fewer anxious thoughts than ever now. I write because I want to, because it's a joy. I use it as a tool to remind myself of intentions, write poetic one-liners, doodle. My journal feels like an old friend of mine. Doesn't matter what I say or do, it's just nice to be together.
Looking at the dedicated shelf I have for my journals, I'm at about 30 full ones. Graphic designer Michael Beirut filled 85 notebooks over 26 years, and he's still going. I'm sure I will get to those numbers someday, too. What's funny is we've settled on a similar rate of filling them: a little over 3 notebooks a year. I'd be curious if others have found the same.
Notes on writing setup and tools:
As I switched from dysfunctional levels of mental rumination to more spontaneous expression via words and drawings, I switched from lined to unlined to give myself more freedom (tried grid briefly, did not work)
I prefer hardback 5" x 8.25" with the elastic band that goes around, back pocket, and bookmark ribbon (Moleskine style), since I throw them into bags and don't like pages getting bent. I feel like Moleskine perfected the notebook size and design, but their paper quality is terrible nowadays (a lot of ghosting, or ink bleeding through to the backside of a page) despite being expensive, so I don't buy them. There's pretty much always a knockoff for half the price on Amazon that's somehow better quality. I used Huhuhero for years (they are like $7 but lined). Looking for my go-to unlined alternative. (At the time of this repost: I’ve been using PAPERAGE Blank Journal Notebooks and I’m quite happy with them. They come in a variety of colors and offer Moleskine features but with better paper quality, and at half the price.)
Tactile sensation matters a lot, because when the writing experience is enjoyable I want to write more. For pens, I enjoy Zebra Sarasa Clip Gel Pen 0.5mm or 0.4mm. For a while I was really into the LAMY Safari, but the tip is a bit scratchy and it's harder to refill if traveling. For paper, I don't like too glossy (especially with gel pens, because it feels like it'll smear right off). I pay a lot of attention to the feeling of the pen meeting the paper. Ideally it's not too scratchy or too smooth so I get good traction.
Journaling digitally has never worked for me. I think being on the computer is distracting, and it's also hard to easily jot down thoughts or draw diagrams if I'm sitting in a coffee shop. I hope to preserve the "sketch on a napkin" low level of friction. I tweet, but journaling and tweeting have very little overlap for me. I might take an interesting thought from my journal and expand into a thread, or paraphrase a post I write online back in my journal so I have a record of it, but they feel distinct for me (private vs. public). Keeping this distinction is important, because I need a space without filters.
Any stickers I accumulate while using a journal get stuck on the front cover! Makes it easy to tell them apart, and it's a fun snapshot of what I was up to at the time.
For archival purposes I measure and cut out my own spine labels from sheets of blank label stickers, stick them on completed journals, and date them. Makes it easy to read on the shelf. The reason why I have to do it manually is because I failed to find spine labels for the size I needed! LEUCHTTURM1917 notebooks come with a few spine labels, but since they are meant for their own notebooks, which are larger than the ones I like to use, they don't fit well.
I may have more thoughts later, but that's all for now.
I loved this, especially the part about realizing your thoughts are recycled ideologies through journaling!
I love this so much. Dotted notebooks are my perfect medium of unlined but still offer structure, since I tend to write at a slant.