Diaries to Blogs
Feb. 11th, 2007 02:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dedalus_1947The popularity of Web Logs (blogs), Web Diaries, or Web Journals has really surprised me. Technorati, an internet search engine for searching blogs, has tracked nearly 60 million blogs, as of November 2006. 60 million blogs! Did 60 million people write diaries and journals before the advent of the internet? “Ordinary” dairies and journals always seemed such archaic, personal, and difficult objects to maintain. The fact that so many people, especially young people, write public journals and diaries on the World Wide Web astounds me. Why do they do it? Why would people open themselves up to such public scrutiny? What is the purpose or function of Blogs? How do they differ from diaries and journals?
I once thought that only young girls, princesses, and British politicians or generals kept diaries; people like Anne Frank, Princess Anne, Winston Churchill, and the Duke of Wellington. Diaries seemed to be “girly” endeavors, or one practiced by eccentric foreigners, not manly Americans. Real men performed actions, women and Brits wrote about their hopes, dreams, and events they wished to memorialize. Although I must admit, I secretly envied people who kept diaries. I assumed that they had important things to say, report, or remember, while I did not.
I tried keeping a journal in 1966, the summer after my graduation from high school, and a diary in 1974, when I was finishing my post-graduate studies at UCLA. I failed at both attempts. I did not last more than two weeks at either endeavor. I would forget, have nothing to write for that day, or just lose interest. Making daily entries in a diary or journal seemed to require more discipline and devotion than I was willing to expend. I also believed that something important had to happen in order to record it, and most of my days were pretty ordinary and mundane. When I experienced truly exciting and remarkable events, I was usually too busy or too tired to report them. It was not until after I married Kathy, that I began to change my attitude toward journals.
It was in the days that we were settling into our first apartment, that I discovered Kathy had written many journals. Throughout high school and college, she had produced a variety of different journals. She had journals with her reflections, prayers, drawings, favorite sayings, or moving quotes. Kathy seemed to use journals as tools to explore herself, the world, and the people around her, through writing and art. She always seemed to have one in progress. I really admired her ability to do this, without pressure, constraints, or demands. She did not make journaling seem hard. Although she did not induce me to adopt the practice at that time, Kathy certainly planted the seeds that began to grow over time. Later in our marriage, Kathy again opened my eyes to the possibilities that journaling offered when I saw how she used it with her students, and our own two children, in class.
Kathy resumed teaching in 1989, after a 10-year child-care hiatus. She also decided to teach in the same school our children attended. Eventually, Kathy would teach them, at different times, in her eighth grade class. Therefore, during that period, I was more attentive to, and knowledgeable about, the activities they, and other students, performed in school, than I would normally be. One of the things Kathy did to promote thinking, reflection, and creativity in her students was to have them write journals. She would have them write on a regular basis to a variety of wide-ranging prompts, personal, religious, academic, or reflective. She would sometimes bring them home and share them with me. Although we were forbidden to read the journals of our own children, the writings of their classmates were always illuminating and insightful. I was amazed at how readily 13-year-old children were willing to express their feelings, desires, and emotions on paper. The fact that their teacher read their journals, and that some topics required her intervention, did not inhibit them from being honest and candid about any subject or prompt. Sometimes this journaling process allowed students to reveal and confess self-destructive, shameful, or wounding experiences of the past and present. They were calls for help, which Kathy was obligated to report, and help rescue. However, despite my appreciation of the writing process and the therapeutic and creative benefits journals could offer, I was still not interested in beginning the practice until 1996.
It was during that particularly stressful and combative year at work, that I read two books that changed my perspective about my profession, journaling, and me, Management of the Absurd, by Richard Farson, and The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron. Management of the Absurd helped me to accept that my job as a principal was impossible. It was impossible to perform to all the demands and expectations heaped upon me by society, laws, politics, parents, superintendents, teachers, and myself. Trying to meet the expectations of all of these people was crazy, and trying to master, the 161 hours a week demands of the job was absurd. Although Management of the Absurd pointed out the paradoxes in leadership, and the illusions of mastery and control, The Artist’s Way provided a method for personal growth and creative expression within this absurd world called education. I learned to journal while reading The Artist’s Way, and I continue the practice to this day.
The Artist’s Way is a manual that espouses the belief that all human beings are creative, and they have a physical and spiritual need to express it. When this imperative is blocked, depression and unhappiness descend upon us like a black cloud of despair. The main tool in combating this artistic block, and stimulating creative recovery, is the Morning Pages. Morning Pages is the simple practice of filling three pages of writing, each morning, on a daily basis. “There is no right or wrong way to do morning pages. These daily meanderings are not meant to be art. Or even writing. Pages are simply the act of moving the hand across the page and writing down whatever comes to mind”. This is a stream of consciousness practice, which necessitates writing. Morning Pages was my introduction to journaling. All that I had seen and learned from Kathy came-together and made sense with this practice.
I have been faithful to the practice I began in 1996, although I have deviated, sometimes. On occasion, I have halted for periods, or changed the setting to Afternoon Pages, Evening Pages, and even, Traveling Pages, but I have never stopped. Journaling has become as normal to me as breathing, and as necessary. Cameron described Morning Pages as a meditative process, and I have found it to be true in my journaling. For me, journaling, like meditation (or jogging, for that matter), is a focusing practice which allows me to differentiate between thoughts of actions and emotions, without clinging to the feelings or attitudes they engender. It also makes me aware of how my impressions and feelings are rooted in the past or the future, but rarely in the present, in the now. It helps me connect with myself, and my spiritual dimension. At this point in my life, I find that I journal because I must, and do so when I can.
I always assumed that my children also kept some type of journals. They had learned the skill from Kathy and other teachers in grade school, they practiced in high school, and they had seen us modeling it at home, through the years they were in college. I was surprised to learn that they did not keep traditional journals, but Tony did maintain a blog. Kathy, of course, was the first to discover this fact and then questioned them about blogging. They were both knowledgeable and very matter of fact about this new medium. While Teresa did not, Tony did maintain a public, internet journal, through a private internet server, on the World Wide Web. This was his means of reflecting on his life, actions, and intentions, and sharing it with friends, and the world. He had the means of “locking”, or restricting, access to his more private or confidential entries, but for the most part, all of his writings were for public viewing. I, of course, did not get it. I had spent years just getting to the point where I felt comfortable writing about me to myself, and now my son was sharing his life with the world. I could not understand it, but I accepted it as another manifestation of our generational and digital divide. At the same time, this new type of journal, the blog, intrigued me.
Tony was a consistent blogger. He had been posting his writings since college. Once he gave Kathy and me permission to read them, I was fascinated. They gave me a new and different insight into my son. I could read what he was doing, thinking, feeling, and worrying about. Tony was also, remarkably honest. We could track his moods through his postings. For a boy who never responded to my emails when he was a freshman and sophomore in college, Tony was now willing to let everyone in on his writings. As time went on, I became more and more curious about this new type of journal. I compared how and what I wrote in my Pages, with what I read in Tony’s blog. They were different. I wrote my journal to me, and for me, and for no one else. Tony wrote his blog to others, about himself, his thoughts, and ideas. After reading Tony’s blog for about three years, I decided to try blogging for myself.
While taking a writing workshop in 2003, I found that my journal served as a great incubator for ideas and themes that I developed into stories. These stories were meant for others to read. It seemed a natural progression, and I did not think much of it, at the time. However, once the workshop ended, my story writing stopped. The only writing I was doing was in my journal. Nothing else was forthcoming, but a nagging desire to write to a broader audience than myself. So, on one particularly boring day in 2006, I logged onto LiveJournal, and opened an account. I had entered the blogosphere, and I have not left.
What have I learned in my journey from diaries to blogs? Human beings are creative, and they have an intrinsic need to express themselves and communicate to others. Blogs satisfy both of these imperatives. They can be written as private diaries and journals, or for a public, or controlled, audience. Blogs can be stories, essays, reflections, photos, videos, audios, paintings, or drawings. They also offer the unique opportunity for response, or commentary, from their readers or viewers. This is dialogue, something diaries and journals rarely offer. Blogs strike me as online derivatives to the journals students wrote in school. Young people were eager and able to write, draw, or paste on (almost) any subject, with the knowledge that it would be shared with an outside reader or viewer. The fact that the reader was a teacher did not inhibit their expression. Blogs give people the freedom to express, communicate, and share without constraint. It is an ever-evolving form of creative and artistic expression and communication.
I once thought that only young girls, princesses, and British politicians or generals kept diaries; people like Anne Frank, Princess Anne, Winston Churchill, and the Duke of Wellington. Diaries seemed to be “girly” endeavors, or one practiced by eccentric foreigners, not manly Americans. Real men performed actions, women and Brits wrote about their hopes, dreams, and events they wished to memorialize. Although I must admit, I secretly envied people who kept diaries. I assumed that they had important things to say, report, or remember, while I did not.
I tried keeping a journal in 1966, the summer after my graduation from high school, and a diary in 1974, when I was finishing my post-graduate studies at UCLA. I failed at both attempts. I did not last more than two weeks at either endeavor. I would forget, have nothing to write for that day, or just lose interest. Making daily entries in a diary or journal seemed to require more discipline and devotion than I was willing to expend. I also believed that something important had to happen in order to record it, and most of my days were pretty ordinary and mundane. When I experienced truly exciting and remarkable events, I was usually too busy or too tired to report them. It was not until after I married Kathy, that I began to change my attitude toward journals.
It was in the days that we were settling into our first apartment, that I discovered Kathy had written many journals. Throughout high school and college, she had produced a variety of different journals. She had journals with her reflections, prayers, drawings, favorite sayings, or moving quotes. Kathy seemed to use journals as tools to explore herself, the world, and the people around her, through writing and art. She always seemed to have one in progress. I really admired her ability to do this, without pressure, constraints, or demands. She did not make journaling seem hard. Although she did not induce me to adopt the practice at that time, Kathy certainly planted the seeds that began to grow over time. Later in our marriage, Kathy again opened my eyes to the possibilities that journaling offered when I saw how she used it with her students, and our own two children, in class.
Kathy resumed teaching in 1989, after a 10-year child-care hiatus. She also decided to teach in the same school our children attended. Eventually, Kathy would teach them, at different times, in her eighth grade class. Therefore, during that period, I was more attentive to, and knowledgeable about, the activities they, and other students, performed in school, than I would normally be. One of the things Kathy did to promote thinking, reflection, and creativity in her students was to have them write journals. She would have them write on a regular basis to a variety of wide-ranging prompts, personal, religious, academic, or reflective. She would sometimes bring them home and share them with me. Although we were forbidden to read the journals of our own children, the writings of their classmates were always illuminating and insightful. I was amazed at how readily 13-year-old children were willing to express their feelings, desires, and emotions on paper. The fact that their teacher read their journals, and that some topics required her intervention, did not inhibit them from being honest and candid about any subject or prompt. Sometimes this journaling process allowed students to reveal and confess self-destructive, shameful, or wounding experiences of the past and present. They were calls for help, which Kathy was obligated to report, and help rescue. However, despite my appreciation of the writing process and the therapeutic and creative benefits journals could offer, I was still not interested in beginning the practice until 1996.
It was during that particularly stressful and combative year at work, that I read two books that changed my perspective about my profession, journaling, and me, Management of the Absurd, by Richard Farson, and The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron. Management of the Absurd helped me to accept that my job as a principal was impossible. It was impossible to perform to all the demands and expectations heaped upon me by society, laws, politics, parents, superintendents, teachers, and myself. Trying to meet the expectations of all of these people was crazy, and trying to master, the 161 hours a week demands of the job was absurd. Although Management of the Absurd pointed out the paradoxes in leadership, and the illusions of mastery and control, The Artist’s Way provided a method for personal growth and creative expression within this absurd world called education. I learned to journal while reading The Artist’s Way, and I continue the practice to this day.
The Artist’s Way is a manual that espouses the belief that all human beings are creative, and they have a physical and spiritual need to express it. When this imperative is blocked, depression and unhappiness descend upon us like a black cloud of despair. The main tool in combating this artistic block, and stimulating creative recovery, is the Morning Pages. Morning Pages is the simple practice of filling three pages of writing, each morning, on a daily basis. “There is no right or wrong way to do morning pages. These daily meanderings are not meant to be art. Or even writing. Pages are simply the act of moving the hand across the page and writing down whatever comes to mind”. This is a stream of consciousness practice, which necessitates writing. Morning Pages was my introduction to journaling. All that I had seen and learned from Kathy came-together and made sense with this practice.
I have been faithful to the practice I began in 1996, although I have deviated, sometimes. On occasion, I have halted for periods, or changed the setting to Afternoon Pages, Evening Pages, and even, Traveling Pages, but I have never stopped. Journaling has become as normal to me as breathing, and as necessary. Cameron described Morning Pages as a meditative process, and I have found it to be true in my journaling. For me, journaling, like meditation (or jogging, for that matter), is a focusing practice which allows me to differentiate between thoughts of actions and emotions, without clinging to the feelings or attitudes they engender. It also makes me aware of how my impressions and feelings are rooted in the past or the future, but rarely in the present, in the now. It helps me connect with myself, and my spiritual dimension. At this point in my life, I find that I journal because I must, and do so when I can.
I always assumed that my children also kept some type of journals. They had learned the skill from Kathy and other teachers in grade school, they practiced in high school, and they had seen us modeling it at home, through the years they were in college. I was surprised to learn that they did not keep traditional journals, but Tony did maintain a blog. Kathy, of course, was the first to discover this fact and then questioned them about blogging. They were both knowledgeable and very matter of fact about this new medium. While Teresa did not, Tony did maintain a public, internet journal, through a private internet server, on the World Wide Web. This was his means of reflecting on his life, actions, and intentions, and sharing it with friends, and the world. He had the means of “locking”, or restricting, access to his more private or confidential entries, but for the most part, all of his writings were for public viewing. I, of course, did not get it. I had spent years just getting to the point where I felt comfortable writing about me to myself, and now my son was sharing his life with the world. I could not understand it, but I accepted it as another manifestation of our generational and digital divide. At the same time, this new type of journal, the blog, intrigued me.
Tony was a consistent blogger. He had been posting his writings since college. Once he gave Kathy and me permission to read them, I was fascinated. They gave me a new and different insight into my son. I could read what he was doing, thinking, feeling, and worrying about. Tony was also, remarkably honest. We could track his moods through his postings. For a boy who never responded to my emails when he was a freshman and sophomore in college, Tony was now willing to let everyone in on his writings. As time went on, I became more and more curious about this new type of journal. I compared how and what I wrote in my Pages, with what I read in Tony’s blog. They were different. I wrote my journal to me, and for me, and for no one else. Tony wrote his blog to others, about himself, his thoughts, and ideas. After reading Tony’s blog for about three years, I decided to try blogging for myself.
While taking a writing workshop in 2003, I found that my journal served as a great incubator for ideas and themes that I developed into stories. These stories were meant for others to read. It seemed a natural progression, and I did not think much of it, at the time. However, once the workshop ended, my story writing stopped. The only writing I was doing was in my journal. Nothing else was forthcoming, but a nagging desire to write to a broader audience than myself. So, on one particularly boring day in 2006, I logged onto LiveJournal, and opened an account. I had entered the blogosphere, and I have not left.
What have I learned in my journey from diaries to blogs? Human beings are creative, and they have an intrinsic need to express themselves and communicate to others. Blogs satisfy both of these imperatives. They can be written as private diaries and journals, or for a public, or controlled, audience. Blogs can be stories, essays, reflections, photos, videos, audios, paintings, or drawings. They also offer the unique opportunity for response, or commentary, from their readers or viewers. This is dialogue, something diaries and journals rarely offer. Blogs strike me as online derivatives to the journals students wrote in school. Young people were eager and able to write, draw, or paste on (almost) any subject, with the knowledge that it would be shared with an outside reader or viewer. The fact that the reader was a teacher did not inhibit their expression. Blogs give people the freedom to express, communicate, and share without constraint. It is an ever-evolving form of creative and artistic expression and communication.
