On Keeping A Notebook

I have just re-read the essay.

It was one of my favorites from the anthology.

I enjoyed reading because at some level I connected to it.

Being an avid journal keeper.

"Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant re arrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss".

I like that line.

I do.

I think it is true.

To some degree, most people that keep a journal are whiners.

Dreamers.

Haters.

It is the only place where I don't feel guilty for writing "I" many times.

Indiscriminately.

Without care of being judged as self centered.

Egotistical.

Me, myself and I.

Even in this blog I freak out if I see many "I"s.

There's evidence of my discomfort from seeing the letter too much.

Just check old posts.

-"That would be a different impulse entirely, an instinct for reality which I sometimes envy but do not possess."

She was speaking about people that keep journals about their daily doings.

I feel that this is true.

I keep a journal, not about my daily doings (I don't have the discipline to do so nor do I feel it would be exciting for me) but about my life.

What I mean is that I sort of summarize what's been happening and my feelings about it.

I consider myself a girl with a firm grip on reality so her author's comment makes sense to me.

Yet, I also write things that are not true.

Not reality.

Dreams.

Wishes.

Expectations.

Realism needs to be broken once in a while by fantasy.

I guess that's why I love science fiction.

Because they pretend to take from reality to make fantasy worlds.

There is some realism in the stories.

But also fantasy.

I have actually been bad toward my journals.

I have not written in quite a while.

I have forgotten about them.

But that's just how it works.

I've been uninspired.

Hopefully, this article has refilled my mind.