The Case for Journalling
~5 min read
There are lots of reasons to do journalling and lots of resources on how to keep journals. My experience is that hand-written journals provide the most durable and accessible records. My own library of journals goes back more than 35 years, including notebooks from work, bullet journals, pandemic notebooks and general notebooks. Making daily entries into one or more journals is a commitment. It is an intent to document daily events.
While computer files are convenient and easy to store, they are not durable or permanent. Accessing the files requires not just the data file but also the software to decode the data into a readable form, whether text, spreadsheet or graphic.
Software has changed over the years, as has hardware. Original files produced in the 1980s were stored on 5 ¼ inch floppy disks (which were actually floppy), then 3 ½ inch disks, then CDs. It is almost impossible to find drives able to read some of the older forms of media and, if you can find the drives, the files themselves are often corrupted. The only copies of documents or records that I have, going back to the 80s, are in print form. Many current computers don’t have disk drives at all. It’s all online and requires access to the internet. Printed documents, on the other hand, are readily readable by anyone.
A treasure trove of ideas
The journals that I maintain are accessed all the time. I have notebooks containing summaries of books I have read, to make the major points readily available, and I frequently go over my notes to refresh my memory. Some of my notebooks have general notes, interesting quotes, things to remember and records of interesting data. Reviewing these notebooks occasionally can reveal interesting nuggets that have been long forgotten. Old journals are a treasure trove of ideas.
My bullet journals are formatted in the simplest fashion and contain the minimum information to be called a bullet journal. Important events, and even unimportant events, are recorded daily in the bullet journal. There is an entry every day. It is an exercise that keeps me writing.
When I do create a file on the computer, I do not consider this file as the permanent record. If it’s important, I transfer the information to a journal by hand and that journal becomes the permanent record. Having the computer file is convenient and makes it easy to share, but the record that will last is in pen and paper.
Memories are volatile but the written word persists
The exercise of recording events and notes in journals is important to me. The act of committing the events of my life into a manuscript gives them a permanence that I find reassuring. Memories are volatile but the written word persists.
We have access to the stories of Gilgamesh not because someone found a floppy disk from 2,000 BC that they could play in their computer, they survive because they were written down in a permanent form. In the case of Gilgamesh, it is on clay slabs carved in cuneiform. We understand ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs because someone wrote them down along with other texts on a stone tablet, the Rosetta Stone. The written word survives in ways that electronic files will not.
By recording our lives in bound journals, we are contributing to the recorded history of the species. Make the intentional commitment to leave your mark for years to come.
