Journaling in Public
If journaling is good for the mind, then journaling in public, since it encourages honesty and rigor, is better.
As everyone knows, writing is a tool for structured (more or less) thinking, and it has been my experience indeed that writing helps to clarify and make rigorous my thought. This seems to be why journaling is touted as a good for everyone. The YouTube gods recently sent me a short ideo called "The Best Learning Tool in History - 400 years ahead of its time!" [1]. I am embarrassed to admit that I watched a little of it. The thesis, if I understood it, was that writing essays is the best way to learn. It is certainly a good way to remember what you learn, and can be the best way to form clear understanding and clear opinions about what one learns. So, three cheers for writing essays! — or "mini-essays," at least.
Now, I've written journals in the past. Every time I start writing regularly, I wind up saying to myself, "self," (say I) "you really need to do this consistently for the rest of all time, because this is fantastically helpful, both emotionally and intellectually! This time, self, you must never stop doing it for any price!" And then, eventually, the psycho-emotional roller-coaster that is my mind gets on to other things, and I forget all about it.
But beyond the general value of journaling, what is the value of specifically public journaling? What I suggest first is that most of the value of journaling is in fact the value of essay writing. When we journal we must compose and organize our thoughts, at least to some minimal degree just to get them in a linear order on a page; this is the value of an essay, but in the case of an essay, we do it to greater degree, with greater rigor, and hold ourselves to a higher standard.
It seems to me that the private journal and the public journal, with its mini-essays, come together at a point between the seriousness of the published and the flippant inconsequentiality of the private diary. The public journal can have value and some weight, but may also have some lightness and the freedom of an exploratory tone, and to range to the edge of what is thinkable for a given person at a given time.
If I am merely describing the personal (and sometimes insufferable) blogs of the 2000s and 2010s then so be it. It was a good idea. Give it a try.
E. Hawthorn Winner
January 9, 2025
As everyone knows, writing is a tool for structured (more or less) thinking, and it has been my experience indeed that writing helps to clarify and make rigorous my thought. This seems to be why journaling is touted as a good for everyone. The YouTube gods recently sent me a short ideo called "The Best Learning Tool in History - 400 years ahead of its time!" [1]. I am embarrassed to admit that I watched a little of it. The thesis, if I understood it, was that writing essays is the best way to learn. It is certainly a good way to remember what you learn, and can be the best way to form clear understanding and clear opinions about what one learns. So, three cheers for writing essays! — or "mini-essays," at least.
Now, I've written journals in the past. Every time I start writing regularly, I wind up saying to myself, "self," (say I) "you really need to do this consistently for the rest of all time, because this is fantastically helpful, both emotionally and intellectually! This time, self, you must never stop doing it for any price!" And then, eventually, the psycho-emotional roller-coaster that is my mind gets on to other things, and I forget all about it.
But beyond the general value of journaling, what is the value of specifically public journaling? What I suggest first is that most of the value of journaling is in fact the value of essay writing. When we journal we must compose and organize our thoughts, at least to some minimal degree just to get them in a linear order on a page; this is the value of an essay, but in the case of an essay, we do it to greater degree, with greater rigor, and hold ourselves to a higher standard.
It seems to me that the private journal and the public journal, with its mini-essays, come together at a point between the seriousness of the published and the flippant inconsequentiality of the private diary. The public journal can have value and some weight, but may also have some lightness and the freedom of an exploratory tone, and to range to the edge of what is thinkable for a given person at a given time.
If I am merely describing the personal (and sometimes insufferable) blogs of the 2000s and 2010s then so be it. It was a good idea. Give it a try.
E. Hawthorn Winner
January 9, 2025
Footnotes:
[1] https://youtu.be/lML0ndFlBuc
[1] https://youtu.be/lML0ndFlBuc
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