In an English class taken in 1970, I was assigned to keep a journal. Originally my English professor recommended it as a source for writing topics. Well the class lasted a semester but the journal lasted for about 30 years.
My journal was an outlet for all the tangled emotions and experiences that a young man goes through. It was quite personal. All my sins are there, as well as hopes, dreams, and even some poetry. Starting in 1985, I made new journal entries electronically on an old no-hard-disk Sanyo computer. Suffering from chronic depression all those years and not knowing it, coated the whole work with a dismal gray film. Every 10 years or so, I would go back to those old composition books and computer files read from the beginning to end.
The decennial reading of the journal was an enlightening exercise in reminding me where I had been and where I might be headed. In some areas I had greatly matured and in others I was still making the same mistakes as I was when I was 18. I kept promising not to continuing making the same mistakes. Le plus ça change….
About a decade or so ago, I discovered my depression and got treatment for it. At around the same time, some personal events changed my perspective to a more positive one. I noticed one day that I had been busy living my life and had not bothered to make a journal entry for over a year. Instead of using my journal to moan about my rather uninteresting life, I had started to live it. The need for journal entries just melted away. There have been times of significant events where I felt I should record my thoughts and experiences as part of my “record.” The events of 9/11 come to mind along with the death of my mother at Christmas time 2003. But the journal just did not work for me anymore.
For many years I have thought about and played with the idea of writing essays – not for publication just my own pleasure. Sometimes in the process of organizing my thoughts, the logic or illogic of a particular position becomes clear. Over the years I have engaged friends of like intellectual curiosity in discussions of a variety of topics. Some were face to face chats, some were written, mostly via email. I also like to travel and write about my experiences (for myself). It is a means of remembering small things that might be lost over time. My most extensive journal was made while on a month-long trip to Europe by myself.
Over the past couple of years I have gotten suggestions to write a blog. “Who would want to read my silly musings?” I asked, more than once. I did not take the suggestions seriously. Lately, those suggestions have come around again. This time I asked myself “Why not?” It doesn’t matter if anyone reads them or not, but if you set yourself the goal, and proceed to write, perhaps one day in the far future some lonely archeologist will stumble across your thoughts and at least have some insight as to how one person of the 21st century saw his world and culture. Perhaps in the here and now some like-minded curious person will stumble across this little space and want to engage in a genuine conversation or debate. A devil’s advocate can only make my thinking clearer and more interesting.
I chose “Multiverse” as a name because it encompasses all that exists, whether we can see it or not. Topics I write about will span many areas of my interest, some very serious, and some admittedly very silly.
If you are reading this, I hope you will find something to spur your imagination or make you laugh. I don’t care. If you enjoy what you read come back and read more. If you don’t like it, fine, move on. Comment all you wish as long as you respect the rules of common decency.
Thank you! Welcome to the experiment!
Jim,
ReplyDeleteAt least you made the first step in doing this. I probably should do this as well to have a journal of what's going on in my life. I should start it now since I'm going out of the country and would like to document my feeling about traveling with my partner on our first big trip away and our anniversary. I'm sure it would be very interesting, especially a few years from now to re-read how I felt at this moment, and what my feeling were at that point in time. We'll see what happens as Apr 23 gets closer.
Finally! I've always loved your strong prose and look forward to reading it.
ReplyDeleteAs I've navigated in the blogging world I've made friends with lots of people with a writing gift, and have had occasion to wonder just why it is I write. Unlike you, I was never able to journal. (Oh, I kept a diary as a teenager but it was just silly. I didn't have the nerve in those years to confront issues that really troubled me.) I love putting words together, though. A basic truth I can't get around is that words make up sentences and sentences are meant to communicate. I can't imagine writing anything at all without knowing there is a potential audience for what I'm saying--otherwise, for me, it's an empty exercise.
The artists I most admire are the ones who have the courage to dig deep into themselves and find things others may identify with and learn from. I wrote a memoir of growing up gay in the 60s. It could be looked at as mere exhibitionism. But I went through things that are either instructional for younger people, or with which others my own age can identify but cannot give voice to in their own lives. My experiences seem to have edified some people--they thanked me for them, anyway....
And so I've realized that I write basically because I'm a teacher at heart. Not that this has anything to do with you at all--but once I get out of "house" mode I mean to pursue this topic a bit further.
Good for you, Jim. Keep it up, please.
Ralph,
ReplyDeleteUnlike you I was concerned that writing a blog would come across as a giant "ego wank" - the introvert's perspective in my case. But I do agree that having an audience helps to hone one's ideas and arguments. I am learning to re-check my "voice" and my logic before posting anything of a political nature. With the other stuff, it just needs to read well. Actually, I thought the River piece was a bit bland. But sometimes travelogues just are.