The Irony of Journaling

[pr0flupin]

I found this poem the other day, and was struck by the irony.  I wrote it years ago about a turning point.

For many years I had faithfully journaled.  For me it was essential, not only to growth, but to sanity as well.  Like many, I filled it with a variety of thoughts: some that I chose to share, and others that I adamantly kept private.

Comments

[frugal_fatshion]

So these passages
I’ll resign
But the ashes
They’re mine
And nobody
Can read them
But me

That is beautiful.

I think I would physically feel myself burn if I ever burned my paper journals. So much of myself is invested in those papers. And I don't have the luxury of a good memory.

[pr0flupin]

Gracias.
When you mentioned the physical connection between the self and the journal, feeling yourself burn, it just hit me that this was like an emolation or cremation. That would have been SO melodramatic (but kind of cool) if I had kept the ashes in an urn like a dead loved one...

I know what you mean about the memory now. Paper may not outlast memory, but it prolongs it.

[lush_us]

Sexy and heroic at the same time. Three and a half thumbs up. Writing is hard enough to do, I can't imagine burning it too.

[pr0flupin]

Your too kind. I sure thought I was sexy and dangerous at the time, but in retrospect it seems I overplayed my hand a bit.

Do you still write much on paper?

[lush_us]

I actually just recently started to keep a journal. I tend to write things down on my computer though because it is harder for other people to access.

[pr0flupin]

Due to cosmic circumstance, dumping just wasn't an option. But you're right--it was a sign of worse things to come.

For a journaler, historian, chronicler, etc keeping it all in our head without setting it down on paper or pc can be difficult. Even when we have minds like steel traps, there's always the danger of words getting "misplaced" inside our heads with time...

[groggysparkle]

Why does this sound familar? Have I read this one before? Humm,...maybe it just feels familiar. At any rate, it is truely lovely.

[pr0flupin]

It may sound familiar because mine have a tendancy to start sounding alike after a few? But this one came after we lost touch. I basically gave up writing this entire time. Then, on a whim, I started painting. People could try to read those all they wanted, and I could just shrug it off. Like I mentioned before: plausible deniability. Just really started writing again in the last several weeks.

I hope your familiarity doesn't come from having gone through the same thing, because it sucks. Sucks I tells ya. I remember what you said about writing it down (old school) and keeping it to yourself. But don't all poems have an audience in mind, even if it's only an audience of one?

"Every song has a 'YOU,'
a you that the singer sings to
(and you're it this time,
baby you're it this time)
--Ani; Dilate

[gudenna]

i think i'm going to like your journal.

Quid Pro Quo

[pr0flupin]

And because you made that comment, I think I'm going to like your journal too.

Quid Pro Quo.