Lately I’ve been thinking about continuing this tumblr thing as a journal-type deal. I’ve always felt slightly more grounded if I have a place to ventilate. I think it’s just somehow therapeutic to throw thoughts and ideas into the abyss.
As an introverted youth, I first found liberation in the form of angsty, highschool-era deadjournal ramblings, eventually progressing to the only minimally less angsty rants of livejournal. Even the short-lived, adderall fueled blogspot babbling managed to sometimes scratch that weird itch of self-expression/life documentation. Twitter never did much for me. It just seemed an even more contrived outlet in which individuals are encouraged to showcase their wittiness or express misery (though I’ve been sporadically guilty of both over the years).
Shortly before moving to china, I had a change of heart about the whole idea of keeping a journal. It mostly had to do with the fact that I had recently come to some crazy, outlook-altering self-realizations. At that time I was so convinced that “living in the moment” was of such paramount importance and so absolutely necessary in achieving true happiness that I believed that even momentarily slipping into that journalistic mindset would ultimately take away from the experience of the present, which I had come to suspect was the only thing that truly mattered in life.
I just didn’t know how to reconcile the two things. Naturally, keeping a public journal causes one to be unavoidably cautious about wording and content and structure and to be constantly aware of outside perception. It is impossible to not keep the “reader” in mind which seemed fundamentally counter to the state of being I was so intent on practicing.
After about 7 or 8 months, while I was fairly settled into my Asian residence, I decided to compromise. I began keeping a personal journal on my computer. Just word documents. Mostly just raw, stream of consciousness summaries of daily events. It was freeing in a sense, and it was a nice way to decompress after class or after a succession of particularly strange events.
Paradoxically enough though, even while I knew no one would ever read these journals but me, i still found it difficult to fully separate my written thoughts from how I imagined someone would perceive them.
Regardless, they were by far the most enjoyable to write and even go back and read when I’m feeling nostalgic.
Fast forward to the future and I think i’ve come to the point where I just have to say fuck it.
I’ve never been a particularly good writer. I mean, with enough time and stimulants and revision and visits to thesaurus.com I can fake mediocrity just as well as anyone, but I’ve come to realize I get more satisfaction by writing more naturally instead of being so UTTERLY self-conscious in my wording and style.
So… I henceforth proclaim this “journal” as a place of personal practice. Some kind of ego-diminishment or something.. A return to the day in which journals were meant to record events and happenings minus the drama and egoic bullshite.
Anywho, just some thoughts and words that came to me during my routine do-nothing-except-lay-on-the-couch-and-try-to-make-my-brain-quiet-session.
<3
