Kurt R.A. Giambastiani

Bad diarist! No biscuit!

Back during The Event, I once again started a journal. I’ve kept a journal, off and on, for most of my life (though it’s definitely been more off than on). Like many diarists, I pick up my journal in times of strife and pain, writing each day (or more often) to rant, moan, analyze, introspect, and claw my way back toward something that resembles sanity. As the drama subsides, however, my journalistic fervor wanes in response; I am simply not compelled to catalogue the minutiae of my days.

And that is the point at which I begin to feel a sense of failure.

I mean, what would history say about Samuel Pepys had he only made entries in his journal in the days after the Great Fire? I’ll tell you what history would have said: Nothing. Pepys is not a famous diarist because he chronicled the events subsequent to that catastrophe. He’s famous because he wrote about his everyday life, every bloody day, regardless of how boring or inconsequential that life was. Sure, it’s interesting to read that, when the fire was raging, Pepys decided to protect his wheel of Parmesan cheese by burying it in the back garden, but his real value is in providing us with the details of daily 17th century life, all of which he captured in consummate detail.

Yeah. That’s not me. I know this, but despite that fact, whenever I’ve got my keel under me once more and my journal entries begin to be separated by blanks lasting days, a week, or more, I feel like I’m somehow failing as a diarist.

Which is patently absurd.

There are no rules to keeping a journal. I’m not dissing the ghost of Samuel Pepys when I fail to summon up the energy to describe my pasta primavera or detail the cost of my car repair. Keeping a journal shouldn’t be a chore; a journal is a tool, a medium to be used when and how it best suits me., To hell with posterity.

Keeping a journal provides each of us with something unique. Some folks will never keep one. Others will find peace and fulfillment in emulating Pepys, taking that quite hour at the end of the day to reflect and wind down. Still others will merely see it as a way to document the meetings, movements, and encounters of their busy lives.

Thankfully, The Event which instigated my recent spate of journalism was of brief duration and was rectified in short order; otherwise I’d still be madly filling pages with my tiny scrawl. However, now that my personal crisis has been dealt with, I feel the need to redefine what keeping a journal is all about.

Filling a journal with the tedium of my life is not remotely satisfying. Filling it with discussions and analyses of deeper issues, with thoughts on the larger questions common to us all . . . well, now that I find of interest.

To each, that which fits our needs, eh?

k