On journaling and two poems
This was inspired by a recent article in The Wall Street Journal called “Why Keeping a Journal Matters: Readers Weigh In.” The article starts with the proposition that journaling makes life better for many, then asks for reader comments on the subject. One commenter talks about using computers to keep a journal and notes the most important thing is to “write as often as you can.”
From Wiki, on one of the most famous journals ever: “The Diary of a Young Girl, also known as The Diary of Anne Frank, is a book of the writings from the diary kept by Frank while she was in hiding for two years with her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. The family was apprehended in 1944, and Anne Frank died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945.”
I think women are smarter about keeping diaries and sharing personal information with friends than “strong, silent” men are. The late writer Christopher Hitchens, when asked about how he felt to be declared a great “public intellectual,” said something like “what is the point of being a private intellectual?” I liked Hitchens in some ways, but thought he was too acerbic and angry about religion.
As for the WSJ commentator talking about online journals, I do consider this blog series a kind of public diary. I may have embarrassed myself a few times but try to keep it to non-personal analysis of mainly art. I find it best to at least handwrite notes before filing a blog entry. It has been said hand-writing activates an extra part of your brain that other forms of communication do not: like a combination of painting and writing.
“Pun-possible” by yours truly
“This relationship has become pun-possible! What could you pun-ssibly want from me?”
“I only want pun therapeutic help, and you are a licensed pun-therapist.”
“Pun on, I am not omni-pun-tent. You must help pun-self.”
“Pun-t taken.”
“Recom-pun-se” by yours truly
“You will never have recom-pun-se for what happened.”
“You make good pun-se, quite logical.”
“Just pun-centrate: people are not going to pun-give you for what you have pun, and they will never fully pun-mit what they have pun.”
“Yes, what has been pun can not be un-pun.”