I realize that I need to just write things if I'm going to write them. I'll spend some time thinking about what I want to write about, and then not write anything. It's a tale as old as time. If you want to write, just write! I have no plan on becoming a writer (as an aside, anyone can be and is a writer, but we somehow think you're only a writer if you make money doing it or are published in some way or whatever - a limit that I think is meaningless really) but I did take the (minimal) amount of time to get this blog up so I should actually use it. I'm also paying for it so, yeah let's use that as the motivation.
I probably should start keeping a list of ideas for this blog so that I'm not staring down a proverbial blank page and thinking "what was it that I thought I'd write about??"
I recently stumbled on my old journal. I started it 25+ years ago. Back then, I was writing "to" my girlfriend. We had a long distance relationship, and I think I had this idea that I'd fill the book up and send it to her to read. The first entries are written pretty regularly (as in, once or twice a week) and framed like letters to this person. Slowly over time the spacing between the entries gets longer, and it shifts from being written to her to more a typical journal - just writing about my feelings and what's going on at the time.
There's a point where I stopped writing in it completely. I picked up a few years later after a breakup with a different girl and had a couple entries there. Then I started a new journal when I met my wife, as it was something she did and thought I could as well. I don't think she knew I had already started one years before. Again, there were maybe 4 or 5 entries from that time, then I stopped for a couple years. Then picked up again for two entries. Then I found both journals today, so I transcribed the entries from the second into the first - mostly to put all these entries into one place for future me to look at again - and wrote a new entry for today. That last gap was 11 years.
What am I even getting at here? Not sure.
I think there's power in writing. I know that there is power in reading, especially what you've written in the past. Looking back over the original entries in that journal, I see the same echoes of problems I face today. The same shortcomings I see in myself today that I saw in myself back then. I was struck by how many similarities I saw. Have I really been fighting these same battles with myself my entire adult life? What am I doing here?
I have been told there's power in writing down your thoughts and feelings. Stoicism promotes journaling pretty heavily. I might write more on stoicism some other time, but needless to say this is something that I've been thinking about for awhile. It's the part about putting it into practice that becomes a challenge. You have to make the time for it. You have to do it. HAVE ... such a word. MUST ... I could write more about these words too, but I won't for now.
I'm going to leave it at this for now. I want to write. I think I need to write. I will write some things in a physical journal that really are just for me. I will write some things here that if others read it, great. If not, that's fine too. But this writing isn't just for me. I like that.