Journal

The journal is that special place where we transform thoughts, actions and other aspects of life into a language that we consider best expresses the observation, maintains the record, etcetera.

Its actually a fascinating process: there are millions of thoughts running through our minds, a host of actions taking place, behaviors and patterns, and so on and so forth. How do we select what to write in our journals? What influences us to jot down a thought today, cascade over a favorite quote tomorrow, revisit a darling moment the next day, and then reminisce in subsequent lines? Why is there a pattern in what we journal?

Does it reflect our personality or is it a revelation thereof? When you go back and pick up that leather cover journal and dust it off; open its pages, read a few lines here and there, or gleam through specific notations, can it still bring out the same emotions that prompted its recording years ago? Or does it offer clues to an understanding of yourself today; things you missed in the past? Does it drive you into regrets or does regret itself becomes pity of a sad decision? Does it propel you into action, to make a change and foster an incredible belief in your strengths?

The journal itself as an entity has its own life doesn't it? It grows from rambles, blurbs of words and sentences, to phrases cramped into meaningful expositions, which in time becomes an historical witness

(Yes on the twenty first of March 1804 I had boiled eggs and potato salad that made my stomach growled in agony. I wish I had the courage to tell that girl who invited me for dinner that she is a lousy cook. I wonder what she'll be cooking when she is twenty. It's over with her)

The Journal is our friend at least to some of us, and to others, more than a friend. We can talk (in writing off course), lash out at her, reveal our most private/intimate thoughts whether sublime or plain nasty. The best listener she is. We can talk and talk (write and write) till ink runs dry and yet she would still be waiting for more. She is the one who lets us flesh out our anger and frustration, celebrate our glories and achievements, question our motives, defend our manners, destroy and rebuild.

She says nothing but takes it all; all emotions to her are spills of ink in all its fancy manifestations. However, she gives those very spills back to us into packages of intelligent, carefully orchestrated responses that resurges, vivifies, clarifies and invigorates (At least that's what we think we are getting).

No matter how we put it, it's always different from the worlds of thought to the flow in our journals. Something magical happens as soon as those thoughts are penned within her confines. She does something that encompasses us; who we are, where we are heading to, where we stand as individuals, vis-à-vis our world and the universe.

It doesn't say it's a mirror image of our personality (Whoa! I didn't know mum was such thoughtful human being. When we were young she was always playing with us like we were her buddies. She was always playful, never knew she had time for deep thoughts. I tell you! Her journal is freaking awesome. I wish she were still alive)

Nor does it point out the mirage of our dreams, or does it even surrogate the myriad impasse for validation. The least and the best she can do is take our words, sentences, phrases, paragraphs as an ink imprint in whatever form we decide to record it, to be left for interpretation by posterity or hidden in the locks of memoirs as a thread to eternity. Vivre le Journal.