Why you should keep a handwritten journal

Pic by seraphicallydrunk

Our lives are highly visible in these here Noughties. They’re documented in the form of Facebook status updates, photo uploads, wall posts and Tweets. But these are mere fragments of the narrative. If you were writing your autobiography, aged 98 and equipped with shiny new bionic limbs, could your desiccating memory fill in the gaps left by these snippets?

Socrates — seen here with his philosophical equal, Keanu Reeves — said that the unexamined life is not worth living. That kinda harshes the mellow, but taking the time to reflect on the how each day’s events have affected you certainly gives you greater insight into yourself and your place in the world. It makes you more comfortable with who you are, and gives you more control over your behaviour.

So, why handwrite? Why not just chuck your thoughts into a Word document or a blog? The downside of digital diaries is that the delete key is too easily accessible. It’s very difficult to resist reading over your stuff and erasing the less-than-perfect bits. This destroys the spirit of the journal — they’re meant to reflect our messy, infallible selves. Digital is too clean and too easily altered — you’ve got the Word Thesaurus sitting there just begging to be used. Handwritten journals are more free, less self-conscious and a better indication of your personality. You can take them anywhere and write at any time, as long as you remember your trusty pen.

I started writing on a daily basis on New Year’s Eve 2007, and it’s one of the best decisions I’ve made. I recommend it for many reasons, including these:

• If you hit a bad patch you can write your way out of it. Okay, this doesn’t work for every situation. You can’t write your way out of a shark attack. But when you are having a rotten time — involving your mood, relationships or inner critic — it really helps to examine the situation by writing about it.
  

  A while back I went though a period of prolonged numbness and one day I decided to write about what had lead me into it. As I was scrawling through my second page, a deep-seated feeling lurched to the surface. It was the oddest sensation: part grief, part exhilaration. The strength of it took me completely by surprise. I wasn’t used to feeling much of anything at the time, and all of a sudden emotions rushed back in and the haze lifted. It was better than being given a giant pair of remote control robot fighters.
  

• Writing about your shameful secrets can make them feel less shameful. When I first started writing a journal, I wrote with an inbuilt censor. There were things I didn’t commit to paper out of fear. I had a vague fear of them being read — perhaps by my tearful family if I died in a freak smelting accident — but the main fear was that I would have to acknowledge them myself.

  Shameful things are exactly the kinds of things that need to be written about. Left inside your head they fester and multiply, and seem ten times worse than they are. But once your evil secrets are laid out before you in ballpoint ink, you may realise something comforting: they’re not actually that terrible. (Unless they involve, you know, murder or something.)
  

• Your life makes for a fantastic story. One day at school when I was about 10, our teacher asked us all a question: Who is the most important person in the world? We shrugged our shoulders and looked at each other, throwing out answers like “The Prime Minister!” and “Jason Priestley!” (Beverly Hills 90210 was in its heyday.) The teacher shook his head at every response. Sensing that this was one of those trick-question shenanigans, we demanded he tell us the answer. “The most important person,” he said, glancing at the whole group, “is you.” We all laughed and thought he was nuts, but he was absolutely correct. Everyone is the hero of their own story. Everyone’s life deserves to be documented.
  

• Memories need to be preserved. If you don’t write things down, you forget what they felt like. The agony of having your heart broken; the exhaustion of staying up all night to cram for a test — these things feel like the centre of your world at the time, but their intensity fades with each passing month. Finding an old journal is like hearing a song from a a childhood summer — it’s a shortcut to an emotional state that would have otherwise been lost to time.
  

• Writing in a journal makes you look totally arty and intellectual, and smart, hot people will want to make out with you. (Maybe, sometimes.)

And now it’s bonus multimedia time! In this video I talk about more benefits of writing on a daily basis and show you some of my handwritten journals. If you squint and tilt your head you might be able to read my innermost thoughts. Thrill central!