Today's assignment from The Art of Manliness "30 Days to a Better Man" series is to begin a daily journal, keeping track our personal minutia and emotional evolutions. I can do that. When I was a kid I kept fastidious notes and journals about my life. Back then I believed that my life was going to be infinitely fascinating to other people. I *just knew* that someday people were going to desperately flip through my journals and notebooks to find the marrow of my being – assuming that I had already become famous, and this shit would matter. Jeez, narcissistic much?
Which brings me to this blog. (Eh-hem.) Following suit in that narcissistic thread, here I am in my mid-thirties blathering on about my life on a daily basis, assuming that other folks might find it entertaining. Maybe the idea of keeping a diary is one of benevolence: if I write in a teeny secret way, I won't have to prattle on in this blog format, and won't have to bore people to tears. Maybe.
Here is the link to AOM, and the excerpt for the day:
It can bring you to your senses. Have you ever struggled with a choice, thought about it long and hard, made a decision, but then some time later started to regret it? Have you ever gotten into a rut from which you can’t seem to find a way out? A journal can aid you in these dilemmas. When you make a decision, you can write down all the reasons you have for coming to that conclusion. Then, after times passes, and you start doubting that choice, you can look back, remind yourself of why you made that decision in the first place, and feel reassured in pressing on. Or, it you’re in a depressed funk and don’t know how to extract yourself from it, you can look back through your journal to find the times when you were happiest. Old journal entries can help you rediscover the kind of changes you need to make to get your life back on track. Or you can look back at your journal and how you used to operate 5 years ago and think, “Damn! I never want to be that man again! What was I thinking?” A journal is basically a chance for your past self to lend counsel to your present self.
Finally, simply writing about your feelings and frustrations helps you focus on what’s really going on in your life and in your head, so that you can come up with a solution to your problems.
Journaling grants you immortality. Think of the billions of people who have and will perish from the earth without leaving a trace of themselves behind. They vanish into the ether, completely forgotten in the annals of history. A journal helps make you immortal. It is an tangible piece of evidence to leave behind that you were here! That you lived and loved! That there was such a person as Jared Matthews who lived in Austin, Texas who thought and breathed and died.
Immortality, huh? And I won't even have to watch any of those punk ass vampire flicks to think that immortality is possible? Then I'm all in... I hate fantasy shit. My diary won't make a single peep about vampires. I swear!
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