Joan Didion On Keeping A Notebook

[muskokabrian]

I came across this link today, an entry for the newsletter "Brainpickings" about an essay by Joan Didion who writes about keeping a notebook. I think it may be of interest to some here.

 

Take, for example, Ms. Didion's ultimate rational for keeping a notebook or diary....

 

"I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were."

 

[…]

 

"It is a good idea, then, to keep in touch, and I suppose that keeping in touch is what notebooks are all about. And we are all on our own when it comes to keeping those lines open to ourselves: your notebook will never help me, nor mine you."

I often see posts about what to keep in a journal. I'm sure many wonder why to keep one. I often ask and answer this question myself! It's a good essay... it can be found here in it's entirety: http://www.h-ngm-n.com/storage/didion%20-%20on%20keeping%20a%20notebook.pdf

 

The newsletter entry can be found here: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/11/19/joan-didion-on-keeping-a-notebook/

 

 

[The Good Captain]

I like this and will read all the 'bits' later when I've more time. After work!

[GabrielleDuVent]

I've kept journals - blog, mostly - on and off for more than 10 years now, and there are a few points that I felt that I might respond to Joan Didion's essay:


1.

We are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be.

Really? Are we entirely sure about that? There are times in the past when I've been unnecessarily cruel (okay, when is it okay to be necessarily cruel? I've no idea), or when I've been excessively childish... I've had a relationship about which I want to scream my head off in embarrassment, friendships that ended over how to shave (I jest not). While they are all parts of me, and I accept it, that doesn't mean I really want to see that old me any time soon. And unfortunately, I don't forget them that easily... I've read the Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff and from the very first page, her writing made me cringe.

Writing, and writing to read about later, are two different games. Writing can be a cathartic process, allows one to organise emotions and thoughts, store them away in little drawers of memories; but writing to read later involves an audience, and I feel that this may change the honesty present in cathartic writings. I certainly would change what I write if I were to expect to read them 15 years later, so I'd sound mature and thoughtful, as futile as that may be.

2.

It is a difficult point to admit. We are brought up in the ethic that others, any others, all others, are by definition more interesting than ourselves.

This may be connected to the reason why I apparently lack any social grace, but I "live in my head" far longer than "living in the reality". In fact, the reason why I began keeping this sort of a notebook was because I had far too many scraps of thoughts in my head that tend to stick and fester like some food burn in an oven. I certainly try my best to appear interested in my classmate's newest love affair, but that doesn't mean I am. Subjectivity permeates all our writings, and a journal even more so. I'm no news reporter and so reporting my daily affairs won't interest anyone.

Keeping a journal - for me, at least - is a rather purging affair, much like a prayer. It is to capture the moment, sometimes, just as one would with a camera and an album; I've tried the camera/album method, but I don't have enough skills to capture that exact moment with emotions and the surroundings. I see a wind-tousled me, but I cannot recall the wind when I see the photograph; yet, when I read my own writing, some word becomes a trigger to remind me of that chill wind in December.

Another is to present me as me, with no audience in mind. I certainly don't have myself as an audience when I write it; the audience is faceless, nameless, without entity. But captured in each entry is my priorities, my philosophy, my mood, captured when I was 13, 15, 18.

I think keeping a journal is something that suits people who are introspective and rather unsatisfied. Most of journals are "whining" in some form or another, or at least that has been my experience. And that doesn't seem to be untrue for Joan Didion either:

Although I have felt compelled to write things down since I was five years old, I doubt that my daughter ever will, for she is a singularly blessed and accepting child, delighted with life exactly as life presents itself to her, unafraid to go to sleep and unafraid to wake up. Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss.

My first notebook was a Big Five tablet, given to me by my mother with the sensible suggestion that I stop whining and learn to amuse myself by writing down my thoughts.

I think I've just ousted myself as "lonely and resistant rearrangers of things", but those who are blessed with acceptance mayhap do not need to keep journals.

 

But seriously, I've no idea why Bashkirtseff's diary was so acclaimed. Throughout the read I wanted to do this:

Edited September 21, 2013 by GabrielleDuVent

[Paddler]

Ermagerd factorial You folks have gone past my house with this thread -- way-to-hell-and-gone past, although, a miss is as good as a parsec, I guess. When I look at my journals, I don't see any purging going on, or any whining, either one. If there are things I would rather not dwell upon, I certain sure won't be writing them down so I can beat myself up with them later. Don't you folks have a liar's bench?

 

Our town sage had a park bench out behind his house on the bank of a creek. He called it "the liar's bench". You could sit on that bench with him and say anything that came to your mind. It would go no further, you see, because everything you said was acknowledged to be a lie and so was not worth repeating. It was like a confessional, in a way, only without the fol de rol. But you certainly didn't write any of that stuff down.

[Sailor Kenshin]

I came across this link today, an entry for the newsletter "Brainpickings" about an essay by Joan Didion who writes about keeping a notebook. I think it may be of interest to some here.

 

Take, for example, Ms. Didion's ultimate rational for keeping a notebook or diary....

 

 

"I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were."

 

[…]

 

"It is a good idea, then, to keep in touch, and I suppose that keeping in touch is what notebooks are all about. And we are all on our own when it comes to keeping those lines open to ourselves: your notebook will never help me, nor mine you."

 

I often see posts about what to keep in a journal. I'm sure many wonder why to keep one. I often ask and answer this question myself! It's a good essay... it can be found here in it's entirety: http://www.h-ngm-n.com/storage/didion - on keeping a notebook.pdf

 

The newsletter entry can be found here: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/11/19/joan-didion-on-keeping-a-notebook/

 

Thanks for the link. It makes sense, at least to me.

[muskokabrian]

The essay was written 50 years ago. I found it hit the mark on many points but if nothing else offered one persons perspective on her reasons for keeping a journal.

[Runnin_Ute]

I read this recently - even made a post about it if memory serves correctly. Not a bad thing to re-visit from time to time. We all do such things in different ways for different reasons. Is any single one of them wrong or right? Not necessarily.