LeliaThomas.Com

The Journals of Man

It’s said that few people keep a handwritten journal these days. You might say that with the creation and boom of the blogosphere, that doesn’t matter. You might even think that I would feel that way, but I don’t. What you see here is a face, a persona. I tell a lot of things on this website. I state both accepted and controversial opinions, and yet the content herein does not come close to some of my most intimate secrets. You typically don’t reveal those to the public, else they’d not be secrets at all!

Again, you might think it doesn’t matter, but I say it does. Off and on throughout my life, I have kept private journals, and, looking back on their contents, I am always shocked to see all the things I have forgotten in such little time. You forget the emotions of specific moments in your life. You forget some of the conversations, some of the events, even some of the lessons you thought you learned. It’s much easier to forget than you think.

And then I look at history, at how much we would not know if not for the thousands of men and women who kept their secrets on pages long ago. You find out the truth of a society and its people in its journals, those little books that sat on bedside tables or slept in drawers. A thousand years from now, I wonder what we will have about this time in history. We will have a lot of information, a lot of pictures, a lot of details, even a lot of supposed journals (like this one), but just how much of it will be true? We often keep the truth–all our raw emotions and politically incorrect opinions–to ourselves.

In our rushed societies, we often prioritize the moments of our lives, so as to save time. Whether intentional or not, we make personal time lines; but sometimes there are important moments between the lines we set, between the big events.

What are you overlooking? What are you forgetting?

Comments ordered from oldest to newest.

kav p

Dammit, I forgot to comment here. :(

Edrei

I tend to forget that life often begins beyond our blogs and computers. Looking back at what I’ve written over the years, I’m glad that I’m slowly putting that part of my life into order.

SkeptiC

I’ve never been a fan of writing personal journals, or even writing personal things period actually. I totally agree that blogging is just a face of our entire self. Thats what it is for me as well anyway. As much as it would be good to be able to open a hand written journal and remember some of the good things from the past. It would also not be good to remember other things. Even though the not so good things are usually remembered without notes to remind us.
But, for some a book of the past is what they need. Just as someone who writes poetry or music, etc., needs to write that down do be able to remember.
Its very cool to pop in some of the music I made when I very first started recording myself. Some of it I can listen to, and be thinking, ‘I made that’. Awesome. I don’t even remember it.

I think you just gave me an idea for my next post.

Take care Lelia.

Lelia

Kav, you ditz. :|

Edrei, it is good to have a life outside of this, certainly. This entry isn’t meant to discredit the online atmosphere (on the contrary, I think it’s one of the greatest man-made creations we’ve got today), but it isn’t “life,” per se. But then, what is life? If we want to get philosophical.

Skeptic, it’s hard to keep a journal. I have never been able to keep a daily journal unless specific things were happening that I felt the need to write about, but I’ve written them when I wanted to. And you’re right; it’s not all good stuff. But you learn a lot about yourself from the bad moments, I find. The bad moments really help you see how far you have or have not come as a person, I think. How you deal with things from one good or bad moment to the next tells you how you’re doing, or at least it does for me. :)

Glad you got some inspiration for your next post! :)

Edrei

Haha, philosophical eh? What’s life but the ultimate canvas. A canvas blank from the moment we’re born. A canvas where you help shape its picture from the moment you live. A canvas where mistakes can either mar a pretty picture or help shape a new course in the painting depending on how you want to look at it.

Phil Renaud

I keep two moleskine pocket journals (one for mixtapes and remembering dreams, the other for notes of philosophical importance when I’m in class) and routinely organize my paper trail of essays and written theses from the past few years.

In this way, I hope to eventually be able to look back on it and marvel, but I wonder: is size the problem, maybe?

Because if I look back on this thirty years from now and have crate after crate after crate of old notes, I imagine I’ll feel overwhelmed and not see much point in going back to review them. On the other hand, what if I have a much smaller compilation, a few scribbled notebooks, filled with important scraps, etc. That, I think, I’d be more inclined to go and have a read.

So, I suppose it’s all a matter of keeping the best of it, if you ask me.