08 April 2009--Journaling, or the Importance of Capturing the Now

I think the act of journaling allows snippets of experiences to take a breather and lay dormant in the experiencer's subconscious, waiting to be fitted into or filtered out of, the conscious life. The snippets that have become incorporated will take their place (however small) in the centralized "life's mission statement or philosophy." This hard-wiring may take months or years to distill, but the result is no less impactful than the Damascus road experience was for Saul of Tarsus. These little snippets still have the impact to change one's philosophy, hard-wiring, and/or views of the world. And I feel like I get inspiration from rereading how these little snippets have impacted my life years ago, and see how it changed me in the moment of the happening, and I also get that thrill of seeing where I am now, and see if that snippet really was as life changing as I hoped it would be. At the very least, rereading some of my journals, as I did this morning, I was very much inspired by what I read to pursue writing even more. I felt an even closer tie to the old me because I know that at the present, I am closer now more than ever to my goal of writing.
Snippets to me are those names, quotations, music, memory, random research, any of those fleeting things that have no relevance to the real world or to life-as-I-know-it-now, but strike an internal chord of sympathy or empathy to the subject matter. Most of the time, I just think it's intriguing and just needs to be captured, and then not thought about again. For, to me, they are more useful after they have found their meaning in my life in my own way in my own time.
I wonder sometimes that being in such a social workplace has helped me to bridge the gap between external and internal worlds; or maybe, just helped me to observe social interactions and envision people in their "everyday" and not just their "special occasion" face.
I also think that's why I have such a hard time with blogs. My first tactile (and therefore comforting) expression has always been writing, pen to paper (versus drawing, music, dance, etc). I'm still part of the scribbler generation, and have come to terms with my messiness and incoherence--broken free of the staid and constrained ways of thinking that expresses itself in really neat handwriting. What first started as small, whispered, scurried thoughts are now huge scratches along the page of my current notebook/pad/palimpsest where I can barely read my own writing. Oh, and arrows. Lots of arrows drawn in and around the page. I guess what I'm trying to say is that as I've become more aware of myself and my need and right to express myself (which would be through writing/journaling), the writing itself has become more free and easy and relaxed. I've recognized that I can be casual with myself and how I treat my thoughts and not be so formal in the words that I choose, not be so guarded. Who is going to chide me for thinking my own thoughts in my own journal anyway? I know I can be my worst critic, but that's mainly for things I do or should have done better, and not for the actual expression of thought. And I think that obstacle, and the recognition and removal of it, has opened up my creativity even more so that I have been able to transition between journaling and describing and dreaming to really working on my writing and move to the place where I am comfortable with dictating the lives of characters and write a novel.
But, I've discovered another obstacle in my resurging desire to whip myself back into shape and develop the discipline to sit in front of my computer and write: I get creativity blocks in which the primordial soup of not quite formed thoughts cannot find shape, life or breath onto the computer screen. Which is why I've decided to renew my blogging presence. For practice.
So, I have made peace with my computer, and therefore blogging, in this way: that I will continue to scribble on my preferred writing receptacle of the moment, and then transcribe it to a blog form whenever I feel like it. This process will hopefully be the baby steps that I need to bridge the gap of creativity between the mind and computer. Ideally, I will be able to write and develop ideas on the computer, too, so as to centralize all of the rabbit trails that my mind, and therefore characters and plot, eventually rambles upon.
Plus, it appeals to my need for duplicates or triplicates. I don't know where that anxiety comes from, which could probably be a post all on its own. I'm sure it's rooted in my childhood somewhere, a sense of loss or rootlessness because we moved so frequently, that I had to create these soothing mechanisms so that I'll know that I've left an impression somewhere and that I have a piece of the moment with me and a piece of me in the moment. But that's just a knee-jerk observation. I could be totally off-base.