It’s, well, not really strange since I’ve known it for a while, but interesting to once again notice how much I seem to enjoy writing. There are definitively phases to it, and the desire to do so comes and goes, which was one of the reasons I decided to do it regularily so that I can hopefully keep the momentum and enjoyment going, but it is still interesting every time I re-discover it about myself.
The latest iteration of this process of discovery has been to finally start keeping a diary, so that I may for myself chronicle my moods and goings and through that hopefully better process things as well as give myself an opportunity to think things through. The process of putting something to paper is one that helps me actually take a deep dive into the matter instead of avoiding it.
Now this is already something I have at times done through this blog, but the nature of everything I post here being public necessarily both restricts what I want to say as well as forcing myself to speak about matters more circumspectly than when I am merely writing for myself and my own reference. Now, yes, the writing I do here is also mainly for my own benefit but it is still all public and consequently does need to have some consideration attached to what I end up saying, especially since humans are social animals and consequently what I think or feel about others might have an effect on them.
Another aspect of this iteration is, that it is for once a real life paper and pencil record for myself, and I have in recent times simply renewed my interest in somewhat old-school methods of communication and writing. There’s something about the idea of just having a handwritten book that just appeals to me, even if it is a lot less convenient and insecure—in the sense that it is probably a lot easier for someone close to me to get their hands on it and read it—than the digital alternative would be. But sitting down at my desk and taking a pen and writing down what I am thinking just feels more right for some reason, perhaps exactly because I already use the digital form of expression for other things or perhaps because I want to give those close to me the opportunity to see what was going on with me were something to go wrong—a consequence of watching to many crime dramas perhaps.
It’s somewhat amusing, I had been considering also taking up letter writing, since it seems to be somewhat of a lost art, and my mother recently found and went through some old letters left behind by her mother, and even though it was all somewhat mundane there was definitely a certain charm to seeing what someone was up to so long ago and retaining that little piece of history. So while I am definitely a child of the digital age and love technology and computers, sometimes it just feels more right to use older methods of communication so that there is a greater opportunity for it all to be studied and appreciated by posterity.