Jan. 20, 2025
Around this time last year, I wrote in praise of writing a diary. I also rather misanthropically referred to it as a “negativity casket” because I found that I was pouring a lot of negative feelings into the notebook. It’s not really a diary as such because I don’t write everyday and I also make other non-diaristic notes, but it does appear to have been something of a process that has helped me to work through my negative feelings.
A lot of people recommend gratitude journaling, where you use the daily reflective practice of writing a diary entry to think about positive things that have happened in a day or what it is that you are grateful for. I can see the value in that because it sets the bias of your brain towards to the positive and towards between being grateful. But what I would say is that not everybody’s life is perfect all the time. Negative emotions are not always useful, but they are valid. The trick is to try and frame negative emotions with the question “well, what do I need then to feel better?”
If you attempt to articulate your frustration, it can be therapeutic merely to rant and rave. A notebook is a safe place for that. No one but you is going to read it unless you decide otherwise. But you can also work on stuff, explore it from different angles. Work out solutions. Work out what needs to be apologised for and what you need to brazen out.
And like many things that accrete in small increments, you can one day find that a massive notebook is nearly full. You might read with trepidation - perhaps every day is really similar to every other, perhaps you are a bitter sot animated by nothing but vengeance - but often you will find in there ideas and jokes and hopes for how to do things better. It can be disappointing to have written to yourself that you were going to do X or Y a bit better tomorrow and know that in the event you didn’t manage to do that, but you can also know that you had the idea and the desire - and that it can be lit once again.
Social networks appear to support people in the same way. But bubbling under the surface there is all kinds of misinformation and distrust. The most contentious content gets amplified in the hope of sparking engagement, everyone tries to be where the fire is. A diary, or just a nonlinearly unfolding notebook full of messages of consolation and support to yourself, can build the fire, manage it, and help drive you on. Start one today and keep going until all of this is behind you.