I like the idea of this site in Letters to my Friend
- Dec. 16, 2018, 10:37 p.m.
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- Public
and I look forward to writing a lot here. I think I should assign a time slot everyday for this task. I want to express myself, but I don’t want it to be just for myself. It feels lonely there. I journaled for years and years (let’s say from age 12 to 23) and then I stopped. I’m tired of just talking to myself. I also don’t want to tell my problems to people in my life, since I don’t want to burden them. I hope this is the solution for me: to write and potentially have someone read what I write, but they don’t have to.
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Serin ⋅ December 16, 2018
I didn't start journaling til 25 and I think if I'd known that this was journaling that I wouldn't have done it. Clearly you're smarter than me.
I hope you find the experience positive. It's a nice community here.
dancingstrawberry Serin ⋅ December 16, 2018
It's great to know that it's a nice community here! I imagine people are supportive of each other. I've already read a few entries, some are very sad, but they're followed up by supportive comments.
I'm not sure I understand your first sentence though XD. Why didn't you realize this (I assume the website) was journaling? Why wouldn't you have done it?
Serin dancingstrawberry ⋅ December 17, 2018
I'd just never understood the point of diary keeping. I know what I've done. why write it down. So "Keep a diary and leave it specifically for others to read" seems vaguely juvenile or just silly. But here (well, a predecessor to here) had a different call to action, which was just "tell a story." I'm not going to keep a diary, but sure, I'll tell a story. Telling you one right now.
So I told stories about life and my day and only slowly started to realize that it really was a diary and that there was actually value in the writing-downery of it.
dancingstrawberry Serin ⋅ December 19, 2018
That's interesting! I guess for me personally I never made it quite strong a distinction between journaling and telling a story. All forms of writing I do are first and foremost for me (some of them are done for an audience, some of them not, but all of them are for me). They're different ways for me to express my own thoughts. There's a quote I read somewhere, whose author wasn't identified, but I loved it so much: "There are thousands of thoughts inside your head which you don't know about until you write them down." I think it's so true. The more you write, the more you realize how much more thoughts there are that are still flowing. So I think the most basic value of the writing-downery of it (cool word!) is just that: to get to know your own thoughts.
But that is an interesting distinction-- between writing for yourself and writing/telling a story for others. Not that I didn't agree there's a the distinction! Just that I never thought of it that way and I guess I do see where you're coming from!