1. Writing Just To Write Is Great Practice
Virginia Woolf observed that writing for no audience – writing just to write – is great practice. “It loosens the ligaments.” Her diary writing, she noted, is rough and ungrammatical. She tended to write in her diary at a quick pace, “with no more pause than is needed to put my pen in the ink”, and, though looking back on these entries was embarrassing and mortifying, she traced improvements – “some increase of ease” – in her professional writing to all those casual half hours spent with her diary.
2. Occasional Brilliance Can Arise From Lots and Lots of Writing
David Sedaris, who wrote of keeping a diary for thirty-three years, accepted that most of it is really just whining - “but every so often there’ll be something I can use later: a joke, a description, a quote.”
3. A Diary Is Not Meant for Others’ Eyes… Or Secretly Maybe It Is?
Susan Sontag talked about a time she read someone else’s journal and, specifically, about reading that persons’ true (and “curt, unfair, uncharitable”) feelings about her. “Do I feel guilty about reading what was not intended for my eyes?” she asked herself. No, she doesn’t – because she believed that one of the functions of a diary – a function we would more than likely deny to ourselves – is to be found and read. A diary is the one place where we have the opportunity and the luxury to be truly, cruelly honest, and it’s not inconceivable that we would secretly – dangerously, even – want others to learn those true thoughts.
4. Journaling Can Help You Come to Know, Understand Yourself Better
Joan Didion thoughtfully broke down why she kept a journal. Her method is typically to preserve everything she observes (from “dialogue overheard in hotels” to “impressions” of people), and while she often told herself the notebook is all about other people, she ultimately had to admit: it’s about her. “My stake is always, of course, in the unmentioned girl in the plaid silk dress. Remember what it was to be me: that is always the point.”
Anaïs Nin, on the other hand, said she writes to discover “the moments of revelation.” She actively chooses to write about heightened moments – “moments of emotional crisis” – because these are times when “human beings reveal themselves most accurately.” Keeping a diary, for her, was essentially about coming to better understand herself.
5. Looking Back On Old Entries Can Lead to True Reflection & Growth
Jessamyn West very astutely said, “People who keep journals have life twice.”
Maybe what she was referring to was that you have the moment you lived and then you have the moment you’ve written about – something you can always refer back to. Franz Kafka believed that referring back to old journal entries – looking back on situations, life changes, old sufferings – gives one a kind of reassuring feeling. You look back on these situations and times – some “which today would seem unbearable” – and you realize you lived, you survived. You were even able to write it all down! And doing so can lead to great wisdom about the self.
Jonathan Franzen also talked about the insights he gained from looking back at old journal entries. He speaks of the feelings of mortification he felt from reading even day-old entries, discovering his own “fraudulence and pomposity and immaturity.” These insights made him desperate to change himself, “to sound less idiotic.” His journal entries, he attests, led him to a private commitment to personal growth.
6. Diaries Can Be An Invaluable Aid to Winning Arguments
And then there’s this gem from David Sedaris: “[Keeping a diary is] an invaluable aid when it comes to winning arguments. ‘That’s not what you said on February 3, 1996,” I’ll say to someone.”
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