What do you do with your journals, and what do you expect will happen to them when you are gone?

[max dog]

Since I started journaling in earnest with my fountain pens 16 years ago now, I have finished 35 A5 size (192 to 240 pages) journals, and 23 pocket sized journals, that all sit in my book shelf for easy access. I've heard some people just throw their finished journals away which I can't do.  I often go back and read passages, and it takes me back to times I forgot about, and find it interesting revisiting my thoughts from many years ago, or about a specific trip I took, etc.  For example I have the first days of Covid journaled, and I wrote about how all the craziness unfolded, an in one part I mentioned how people were hoarding toilet paper and even fighting at Costco for them, which sounds insane now, but really happened. 

 

I think journals can be like old photo albums, or home videos.   But I often think of what will become of them when it's my time to step off this merry go round.   I don't have kids, so passing them off to the children is not an option for me.  Will they just eventually end up in a landfill, or will it help some historian in centuries from now piece together what was going on in our times and how people lived in different places?  I hope it would be the latter, but what are the chances.  

 

What are all your thoughts on this subject, people who journal with their fountain pens?

[A Smug Dill]

I don't think my wife and I have reviewed, or even pulled up on a screen (be it the TV, or a computer, tablet, or phone) our wedding photos/albums even once, after the first N months (and, let's say, N being two more than the number of months it took the photographer) since that day, once we've caught up with all the friends who couldn't make it to the occasion. The USB sticks filled with our travel photos were almost never pulled out from a pile, except for the rare occasion when we wanted to find a particular photo (e.g. one I sent to Australia Post to have printed as the image on valid postal stamps, as a vanity/novelty thing just for the lulz) that we know exists.

 

Anything I've written down, other than my will (which isn't handwritten anyway), I hope it all gets burnt, shredded, or even just unceremoniously thrown out with the trash after I'm gone. Excluding the ink reviews and such that are already published online, of course. 😉

[austinwft]

1 hour ago, A Smug Dill said:

Anything I've written down, other than my will (which isn't handwritten anyway), I hope it all gets burnt, shredded, or even just unceremoniously thrown out with the trash after I'm gone. Excluding the ink reviews and such that are already published online, of course. 😉

 

Ditto!

[Estycollector]

It depends on whether I die suddenly or after a long illness. 

[txomsy]

I do not journal much, but I do take notes and jot down quotes and thoughts. Whichever, I expect as soon as I'm gone someone will dispose of all the junk (if I haven't done it first).

 

 

[PAKMAN]

My journals are just for me to keep up with what is going on at the present moment. Sometimes I refer back to them to find dates of events. I doubt anyone would care to read them, and if they did they would be terribly bored. They can be tossed as far as I'm concerned when I'm gone.

[cossar]

I see this is a personal topic and there are several responses.

 

I enjoy reading through the notes/journals/memoirs of late loved ones. My journals right now are not really written for that purpose yet - I'm still relatively young and the focus of my journals has been self-reflection and prayer. But someday I hope to shift focus of my journals to something that my kids/future-potential-grandkids may be interested in reading about.

 

 

[InkyColors]

I am interested in genealogy and find that old records and journals are priceless.  Some of my ancestors were Quakers (quite a surprise) and I’m sure that when they wrote minutes in 1688 recording marriages, family info, and even last words of dying people they would have never believed that centuries later one of their grandchildren would read and cherish them.  I know it’s not the same as a personal journal, but they are valuable sources.  Who knows where your journal may end up.  I also have relatives whose letters are in historical papers at a nearby university library.  I’m sure they didn’t expect their correspondence to be saved for so many years.

[Karmachanic]

The twaddle I scribble on fine Japanese paper with iconic pens, custom ground nibs and beautiful modern inks goes in the recycling bin.

[DrPlush]

I keep my journals in a cupboard. I sometimes like to flip through them as I find it a satisfying feeling, but I almost never read parts of them. I’ve made my partner promise that, if he outlives me, no one in my life now will be allowed to read my journals (as we’re a sensitive bunch and I’m sure they’ll all find one or two things hurtful over all my years of writing through my feelings, which I do not want). But I’m a historian and I think recording lived experience and insight into ordinary people’s lives can be incredibly valuable, so I’m theoretically fine with people other than my family and close friends reading them after I’m gone. On the other hand, I’m aware that chances are they’ll just end up in a skip.

[Waltz For Zizi]

On 9/5/2023 at 11:48 AM, max dog said:

Since I started journaling in earnest with my fountain pens 16 years ago now, I have finished 35 A5 size (192 to 240 pages) journals, and 23 pocket sized journals, that all sit in my book shelf for easy access. I've heard some people just throw their finished journals away which I can't do.  I often go back and read passages, and it takes me back to times I forgot about, and find it interesting revisiting my thoughts from many years ago, or about a specific trip I took, etc.  For example I have the first days of Covid journaled, and I wrote about how all the craziness unfolded, an in one part I mentioned how people were hoarding toilet paper and even fighting at Costco for them, which sounds insane now, but really happened. 

 

I think journals can be like old photo albums, or home videos.   But I often think of what will become of them when it's my time to step off this merry go round.   I don't have kids, so passing them off to the children is not an option for me.  Will they just eventually end up in a landfill, or will it help some historian in centuries from now piece together what was going on in our times and how people lived in different places?  I hope it would be the latter, but what are the chances.  

 

What are all your thoughts on this subject, people who journal with their fountain pens?

Get some kids. Adopt....or you can send them to me. I promise I won't throw them away.

[txomsy]

I often like to entertain the thought of leaving a time capsule that can last 500 years or more. By then, perchance there may be someone who might be interested in learning about archaeology. Or not.

 

But, considering the pace at which we are destroying our environment, what would be a possible place to hide some such? Considering the increasing frailty of materials in modern consumerism, what could last longer than a few years and have the minimum required protective quality? Considering the pace of technology change and abandonment, what can be expected to be accessible in just a few years from now (reading already being merrily abandoned)?...

 

In sum, when I think about the future, I get pessimistic about our civilization. That's why, 1) I think no one will care, 2) I don't think anything I can leave will ever interest anyone and 3) I prefer not to think of it not to be depressed

 

Quoting Friedrich Schiller: "Against stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain."

 

Not to say I do not fight as hard as I can; quoting E. E. Cummings: "An intelligent person fights for lost causes, realizing that others are merely effects" (which in no way whatsoever has any implication that I might have, even remotely, any bit of intelligence, which I most assuredly haven't).

 

[TSherbs]

I throw them out. I don't look back at them, and I don't want anyone else looking at them. I keep them for a few months, then off to the bin. Mine are then burned in an industrial incinerator. I don't write about many daily things; I don't use it as a diary. I use it to write on meditation topics, prayers, etc, that help me to focus for the day. When my real life gets deep or profound and requires more of me, I do not write about it. Too busy experiencing the bigger stuff to put into words: words shut off for me at that point.

[ridiculopathy]

I expect they will be tossed when I am gone. I only write minimal details in my 3-year journals to remind myself of the memories and feelings of that day. I was inspired by my primary school journals-as-writing exercises, where I wrote entries like “Today is a rainy day” and “[My brother] got a Duck Tales video game today”. Those simple phrases evoke a lot of memories for me, but probably reveal nothing to everyone else. 

[Ink Stained Wretch]

Journals, notes, diaries whatever we want to call our personal writings I've been doing them for quite a few decades. My earliest ones were from elementary school. They're all long gone. I did this stuff in a word processor for about 16 years or so, some of it was transcribed from handwritten notes to the word processor. That digital stuff is less likely to survive than what I write with a fountain pen on bound paper.

 

I do wish that what I've written could survive me by quite a long time. I know, however, that that's unlikely. I've read the diaristic writings of people like Thomas Wolfe (1900-1938), Franz Kafka and others. But I know that they were famous and people wanted to preserve their diaristic writings. Even if some of my insights and experiences might be of value for people to read about they'll never know that I ever existed or had those experiences. I think that some of what I've written in my journals, etc. might be entertaining or informative for people in the future but I strongly suspect that what I've written will go into the recycle bin after I croak. As the time of said croaking gets closer I do find it a bit disquieting that it will all be discarded. I would hope that the paper gets recycled rather than burned, at least. On the other hand it has been good for me to go over my back pages and remember things and sometimes have memories corrected. Well, at least I get some use out of them. Just writing stuff down can be helpful for me 🤷‍♂️.

[InesF]

My notes, finger exercises and journal entries are written in a style and with content that is not intended to be read by anybody else. I keep them for some years and sort out and destroy the older ones.

What I like to share with my relatives, with friends and with the world is written in letters, personal messages and in fora (like FPN).