Open Mike: Theory of Diaries

[Note: I had promised Chapter Three of "Mastering Photography" for today, but it's just not quite cooked yet and I don't want to rush it. Here instead is a bit of a meditation on blogging that started as a response to Peter Croft. I can't be sure—my email records don't go back that far—but I think it was a question from Peter that inspired "On the Sharpness of Lenses" on mir.com many years ago.

I could be misremembering that. One aspect of my work life is that thousands of names go by without faces attached, and for a person with a primarily visual memory that can get confusing! —Mike the Ed.]

Peter Croft (partial comment—see the Comments section to the previous post for Peter's entire text): "I started my blog in May 2009...I've done 729 posts so far and I usually write something on average every second day. It's just a diary really, on anything and everything to do with my life. I never feel lost for words. It's mundane stuff (my car got bumped from behind on the road yesterday, so I'll gnash my teeth about that). Occasionally I get a bit more profound and I'm quite proud of a few of my posts. I always keep posterity in mind, thinking of Samuel Pepys's diary. Who knows whether someone in 500 years time will read my words about what life was like in the 2000s.

"I'm also an obsessive keeper of lists and notebooks. When I retired in 1999 I started keeping notebooks of every cent I spend. People say, 'I don't know where the money goes!' I do. It keeps my mind sharp too, as I mentally retrace my day's activities and where I was and what I spent.

[...]

"I get maybe two comments a year. I don't know whether I'm too boring or too ready to take up the cudgels. I admit I do have strong political views and opinions. Oh well, it's really only my on-line diary, written for myself so it matters not. I just feel the need to write."

Mike replies: It's known that a higher-than-random percentage of successful people keep (or kept) diaries or journals.

I haven't been able to find more about the "theory of diaries" so I haven't written much about it, but an article I read once made an impression on me. It claimed that writing diaries leads to greater accomplishment. It's said to work by improving your consciousness, and bringing into better awareness patterns and habits that are more below the surface for most people, which in turn improves your planning and your direction in life and helps you progress. The writer's conclusion was that maybe it's not that accomplished people keep diaries; maybe it's the other way around, that the process of keeping a diary helps people become more accomplished.

Fascinating idea.

I do have to say that TOP is not a diary and it's not actually personal. As quirky and self-involved as I sometimes get, I have to say I always have the audience in mind and I am always (really without much in the way of exception) writing for others—to entertain or to enlighten or just to provide "virtual company." There's a lot of "me" in some posts, but it's always "for" you. So TOP doesn't function as a diary. In fact, I have a poor memory for what I wrote about on TOP in the past, last month or last year—so it's interesting, to me, too, to occasionally go back and scan over old posts.

As far as comments go, blog-writing is a numbers game. Only something like 2% to 4% of my readers ever buy things through my links, for instance. It's only because I have so many readers that that works. And only about 5% of my readers ever comment. That's one in twenty, though, which seems like a high ratio to me. And the highest percentage of a day's readers who have ever commented on any given single post is somewhere around 1%.

Peter might want to think about "inviting" comments more effectively. I'm almost always genuinely interested to hear from readers—often it's the way that I get to enjoy my own blog! (Since I write most of the posts, those aren't so enlivening for me.) But it's a knack to learn to leave "conceptual space," if you will, for others to step in to. There have been times when I've published beautifully presented guest posts that draw very few comments. It's because they're self-contained—"sealed," one might say. They're interesting to read, but they don't invite conversation. I try to leave some open ends in posts, because I'm eager to hear from readers.

Peter Croft. He's the one in the kimono.

Every day in its day
But back to the Theory of Diaries. Think of addiction: the great insight of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous was to understand the pattern of addiction and turn it on its head. Addiction works one day at a time; we think, "I'll just get high one more day and then I stop tomorrow" or "I'll just get drunk today but this is the last day, then I'll deal with it tomorrow." (Cf. the song by Jane's Addiction, "Jane Says.") Bill and friends got the idea to use the same strategy for sobriety: it's too daunting to quit forever (the idea can be so dismaying that it causes people to give up right on the spot), so all you have to do is stay sober for one more day—"one day at a time" in the mantra of AA.

The advantage of keeping a diary or journal of your life is that it helps you keep better track of all the perpetual tomorrows. It lets you see your patterns more easily. For instance, I've been wanting to write a book. But I've been wanting to for thirty-five years. In my mind it's always something I'm about to get started on—it's an ambition that's always in the present. But actually doing it is something I always put off.

That's the kind of thing a diary helps you with—if I kept a journal, I might be able to look back and think, "jeez, I've been thinking this way since 19xx. I'd better get to it." Or "this never happens; I'd better give up that ambition." It helps track your changes, your thinking, your priorities, helps you be more conscious of actual vs. perceived progress and stasis.

For the Theory of Diaries to work, it specifically shouldn't be literary—just write down what you did, who you were with, what your top concerns are that day, what you're working on and thinking about. But be practical. Think in terms of your life and its direction—your "progress" through your life you might say.

I have a friend who kept a journal for a number of years, and when a new situation presented itself that related to a period of her past, she was able to go back and reread her journals for clues as to how she was thinking and feeling back then. That's another useful feature of a diary. It's data. A record. Mining it can help with the kind of insight that helps you to evolve and progress in your life and understand yourself better.

Another friend kept notebooks for years, in which he wrote down useful ideas, quotes he liked, reactions to art, all sorts of things—they were like creativity-incubators. I always thought it was the same book he was carrying around with him, but then in his college room I saw about nineteen identical volumes lined on his shelf and I realized he was filling up book after book. Then the time came when he stopped. But he retains the metal habits that he developed while he was journaling—he's still very good at recalling quotes with exactitude, and he remembers names of artists and book titles. It was as if his period of notebooking groomed his mind, and eventually his mental habits were secure enough that he no longer needed the physical notebooks.

Can't do it
I've never been able to journal or keep a diary myself—I always got too distracted by ideas to keep a suitably simple record. I used to joke that if I had my life to live over again, the one thing I'd do is take better care of my teeth. But actually there are two things I'd do—take better care of my teeth, and keep a journal or diary.

Perhaps it's true that the great decline in the habit and practice of writing things down augurs against this for younger people today. Nobody works on penmanship, nobody writes letters (especially on paper)—the traditional arts known collectively as "letters" are in decline and disarray. Still, I believe that to write a diary or journal is great advice for young people who want to monitor their progress in life and improve their chances for success, accomplishment, progress, and for "knowing thyself."

Mike
(Thanks to Peter)

P.S. Notice how the third- and second-to-last sentences invite comment. See what I mean about that?

"Open Mike" is the off-topic weekly editorial page of TOP, not that I don't editorialize at least mildly throughout the week. "Open Mike" appears on Sundays.

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

TOP's links!

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

jeffrey K Hartge: "I started 'journaling' around 2010 (at the age of 42). I did it as a check against my changing recollections of the past. I wanted a more accurate accounting of my perceptions at the moment that I could look back on and see how much 're-imagining' I do with respect to my past.

"Anyway...

"One of the first byproducts of my journaling efforts was an explosion in productivity. Most days my journaling starts with "to do" lists for both the day and the remainder of the week.

"These to-do lists, in my mind, have several clear effects:

1. Just the act of writing the list down allows me to be free of the mental energy of trying to remember the list. Now, I can move on to processing the elements of the list.
2. The act of writing it 'makes it real.' I now feel compelled to do something about it. This also leads to my thinking about each item on the list more realistically. I stop wasting time with pipe dreams (that I don't have the resources to accomplish) and focus on what I really think I can accomplish.
3. Seeing different activities on the same page causes me to prioritize. I think about what I really want versus what would be nice to do versus something that just seemed like something I should do. I find that I start with the items on the list that I can get done quickly—this gives me an immediate sense of accomplishment.
4. It also allows me to realize the longer term tasks as longer term tasks. I then create sub-task lists for those items. I then, simply, 'nibble' at the sub-task lists each day.
5. By revisiting the lists each day, it helps me keep in perspective the 'down the rabbit hole' type tasks/activities.

"The other major consequence of 'journaling' was an improvement in my recollections of events from the immediate past. Just writing things down allowed me to lock in the events more clearly.

"Journaling is an activity that I hope to impart on my sons. I definitely can see the benefits and have a level of regret that I did not start earlier.

"I started my journaling by writing in little black sketch books. About three years ago, my brother convinced me to get a tablet computer with a stylus. I was uncertain about spending so much money and so I purchased a refurbished one. That turned out to be one of the best purchases I ever made. I carry it with me everywhere and add notes throughout the day...every day."

Speed: "My photographs are my journal."

Mike replies: I used to try hard to do that, because I'm visual as well as verbal and my memory is mainly visual. I tried to make half my shooting a "diary of my days" and half for more artistic purposes.

The job I did was only "okay" at best. Many of the things I really wanted to remember most I didn't get shots of, and many of the quotidian things that happened that I did get shots of, I didn't need to, or care to, remember.

A further problem is similar: that the quality of a photograph is not commensurate to its significance or importance. Even among the pictures I did take, often I got wonderful photographs of things that were not meaningful to me, and woeful snapshots of things that were extremely important or dear to me.

Terry Letton: "There has to be a hell of a story about that picture. Inquiring minds want to know."

Peter Croft: "There's a big smile on my face at seeing my words and that image used. Thanks Mike. The Yalta scene was a Photoshop exercise in a course I did in 1994. May I recommend Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self by Claire Tomalin as the reading about Samuel Pepys. I've read it twice and might even read it again, as I enjoyed it so much. I find it fascinating to read what he did in the 1660 period, and especially to think that he never knew the music of Bach or Handel or Mozart or Beethoven. Even Shakespeare's plays were young then. His writing was not especially literary; it's just the small details that fascinate me, such as getting a builder to make alterations to his house. I hope someone in some future century might see my minor musings and find them interesting."

JK: "I started a travel journal when I went to Japan as a student in 1976. But then I ended up staying on in Asia and my travel journal became, well, just a journal. Which is to say a bit of daily meditation, a kind of regular calisthentic program for writing, an aide memoire (and digital since the mid-80s, so easily searchable), and a 40-year conversation with myself. I can't imagine my life without it."

Comments

[vincent bilotta]

llen's in Pa, etc, because i get free overnight or 2nd day shipping and pay no sales tax. for an A7r II and both Batis lenses that is a lot of tax. i would favor your links if they weren't all hanging around Times Square.
Thanks for all the entertainment, thought provoking and useful knowledge,
vincent

[Anthony Shaughnessy]

I started a blog as a diary, specifically as a way to keep a logbook of walks and climbs as part of an aspiration to get a mountain leader qualification. After not too long getting traffic to it became an end in itself and a bit of an obsession. A bit like the obsession when I took up photography to take any picture that was sharp and well exposed, regardless of composition or subject. My blog's become more about photography in the last few months - an achilles injury means I'm not able to walk up mountains for a while. But I think it's still as much a diary as anything else.
Anthony

[Larry]

Mike,
I've read other articles about keeping a diary or a journal and I used to do it myself for some time. I haven't in several years though - maybe it's just that I felt the need back then to keep track of what I was doing or felt at the time. It was also an opportunity, though, to practice writing when I knew nobody else was watching (I fancy myself as a decent writer and you need to practice). As a cruising sailor, I used to write regularly in my logbook about what was happening around me and my boat. I typically only write now for work, and it's mostly boring stuff although I try to make it as readable as possible.

I may try to pick it up again as I realize I do miss it sometimes. Also never hurts to practice.
Thanks.

[Peter]

Perhaps today's equivalent of keeping a diary is posting your meals and toilet habits on Fecebook and the like. How can you keep a diary when you don't know how to write (not type)?

[David Dyer-Bennet]

People communicate with each other in words more than any time in many generations! Particularly young people.

[Well, maybe technically, but tweets and texts are not the same thing as handwritten letters and diary entries, I don't think. --Mike]

[Ragnar Hartman]

I find that much like the camera in photography, the selection of the writing instrument itself can influence the what, when and how of keeping a journal. I find that if I use a certain fountain pen, as versus a pencil or ballpoint pen, I tend to slow down, and think more carefully about what I'm writing, with the added plus that my "penmanship" is much more readable. a much more pleasant experience, one which I'm more than likely to repeat.

[Dennis Mook]

Mike, I started writing a blog about 2 3/4 years ago just to provide updates and images to family and friends who were following my travels. After returning home, I continued it and started writing about my lifelong experiences in photography, the satisfaction from it I derived and a bit about my gear and how it performed. Now, 500 posts later, I find that I don't want to stop writing (even with a very small audience of about 500-600 readers per day) as writing gives me great satisfaction and has become somewhat addictive. Additionally, I think I may be providing information of interest and am being helpful to a few and I enjoy helping others. Finally, I've now met and made friends from readers who have contacted me and I cherish those new friendships. I think my blogging is good therapy!

[That's not actually a small audience Dennis--500-600 readers puts you ahead of all but a tiny fraction of blogs. Take heart.

(Good to hear from you, too.) --Mike]

[MichaelW]

I used to keep written journals in my art school days about twenty years ago. I had the habit of writing at the end of the day, often in bed. I built up too many notebooks and that made me stop. I recently started again using the Evernote app which syncs between my iphone & home computer. So I can make notes on either device and it all ends up the same. Currently I'm just doing brief summaries of the day.

[DavidB]

Thanks for an interesting discussion of diaries.

Looking back, I've found that I did a better job of keeping a journal for my work than for my personal life. I have several volumes that document the problems I was working on, how I solved them, interesting methodologies, and more. This was an essential part of my scientific career. Now retired, I've gone back through some of these journals and have been amazed at how much smarter I was back then...

I've been writing a photo-blog for a bit over five years. In that space of time I've had about three dozen comments (and about 65 thousand spams). I like your idea of ending the post in a way to invite comments. I'll have to work harder at that.

[robert e]

While reading this post, I, too, wondered about the similarities and differences between diaries and Facebook et al. We may be living in a time when ordinary lives are both more exposed and less examined than ever (at least for those with the luxury to do either).

Oh, and belated Happy Birthday to TOP!

[Speed]

Kevin Cameron in the Jan/Feb 2016 Cycle World ...

" ... after every interview with a rider or engineer at trackside, I would walk out of sight, then whip out a notebook and write down everything I could remember. Often when writing about related matters, I refer to those numbered notebooks and in a sense may learn more than what the words say; in the time since I wrote them, I've learned other things that how shed further light on those old notes. That suggests it might be good to live twice -- once for the experience and a second time hoping for understanding."

[John Camp]

I would agree with your response to DDB about tweets and texts as opposed to letters and diaries -- tweets and texts are purely conversational, and are ordered like conversations -- that is, with very little real order. They are also intended to elicit replies, as is spoken conversation.

Letters and diary entries are usually structured, and are not intended to elicit replies. Somebody will now say, "Yeah, but the Iliad and the Odyssey were originally spoken, not written," which is true, but what we know of them is written, and since they were long formal poems, they were heavily structured even when spoken, so that they could be more easily remembered. They weren't conversation.

Going back to DDB's comment, young people don't converse more than in the past, they just tweet and text more. That tweeting and texting is simply displaced vocal conversation, not an add-on. IMHO.

[Michael Perini]

I have always written notes to people. Especially my kids & wife. We have 4 kids the oldest of whom is 40.We ahd a rule about no store bought cards, Take a minute draw a picture write down what you want to tell the other person. It persists to this day, if not with complete evenness throughout the family. Some has moved from longhand to email. But the goodness and power of thoughtfully composing complete sentences has become a shared family treasure.
To this day, the best way for me to know what I really think about a subject is to write about it. And frankly, I find electronic forms of writing nore satisfying and productive because they are so easily revised to better say what we mean.
I have always kept a notebook of quotes and short pieces that has moved to bits as well
I don't keep a diary, but I write
m

[Victor Bloomfield]

The topic of diaries can't be complete on a photography blog without a mention of "The Daybooks of Edward Weston" (Aperture, 2 vols). More than 20 years of often daily notes about the ups and downs of a committed, often difficult, life by the man whom Ansel Adams once said was "the J.S. Bach of photography". Amazon has various editions available, both hardcover and paperback, with some of Weston's best photos from both the Mexico and California phases of his career. The books are not cheap, but are not unduly costly, and are definitely worth the price. (A good way to contribute to TOP.)

[Daniel S.]

I've never kept a diary, because I don't need to: my memory isn't perfect, but it's good enough that a decade for me is like two or three months ago for regular people. Though thanks to that, I can also vouch for the benefits of reflection and self-examination; you cannot determine how to reach your goal if you don't know where you're starting from.

One downside of having such a good memory: most stuff you read stay so long in your head, it's hard getting to enjoy it again like you did the first time—or never got to, if someone spoiled it for you. And speaking of, an XKCD relevant to your statement on younger generations' writing skills: https://xkcd.com/1414/

Funny anecdote, though, to show such thinking happens to everyone: I'm still not even 30, but I used to bemoan the newer generations' hard computer skills would be hurt by modern systems' relative ease of use compared to the MS-DOS and UNIX of my childhood. That, until I had to fix my aunt's computer after my then 9-years-old daughter had "tinkered" with it, and understood she could not have made half the mess she did without a deep understanding of Windows' permission system and how to maneuver around it. And even though unlike me, computers have never been among her interests; she's a visual artist first and foremost.

Fear the Facebook generation, for they hold keys to a world we do not even know, and which comes to them as natural as breathing.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

Well, with 10-second turnaround, it's only rational that the form of communication is somewhat different from when it took days, weeks, or months (going back to say the 18th century) for a letter to cross an ocean).

But I'm thinking of real email, and LiveJournal posts, and blog posts and comments, and FaceBook posts, and such as much as tweets and texts. Texts are for practical arrangements mostly, not so much for discussion.

Look at people communicating with each other in text right here on your blog!

[Moose]

"success, accomplishment, progress"

', and for "knowing thyself."'

I suggest that these two pieces, strung together, don't necessarily get along.

Success, accomplishment and progress, for most of us, most of the time, especially when young, tend to be adopted cultural, parental, religious and other external definitions.

Once one begins to know oneself, the definitions tend to change. The greater the self knowledge, the greater the difference may become.

Conventional "success" at the first may mean failure at the second. "Success" at the second will most often mean at least replacement with old definitions of the first, and not uncommonly, abandonment of the first entirely as collective values that don't apply to the now known self.

[Saul]

On the subject of Pepys I'd recommend this excellent Radio4 dramatization of his diaries.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0162jg4 not sure if you can get this in the states but the 15 minute slices are a nice way to access the diaries.

The man was an absolute rogue in modern terms, very entertaining.

[Chris]

Many years ago I ran a centre in the UK to assist unemployed people. I decided to offer a free training course in word processing, and advertised it in the local press. Amongst the people who applied to join the course was a seventy year old Indian lady. Curious, I asked why she wanted to learn word processing. She told me that every month she wrote a thirty page letter to her family in India, describing all her activities for the month past. In return she received thirty pages back from several family members. So I said, "Why do you want to learn word processing?". Silently, she held up her hands to show me her arthritis.

[D. Hufford.]

I have done both, a 7-year blog and off and on diaries for most of my life. I actually had a lot of comments on my blog which was about Japan and Japanese politics. I posted about every day for a while then dropped to several a week when I had something worth writing about. For a while I didn't even accept comments and after lots of email requesting I open them I did. I rarely rejected comments, even when a few of the far, far, Japanese right would make some very wild ones. "Let a hundred flowers bloom," I figured.

Then, in January 2011, I all the sudden got tired of it. Sorta took a break and never went back. As it became more popular, I became more concerned about any influence I might have, so research and checking sources became more and more time consuming. I was a bit concerned about writing anything controversial due to my and my ex-wife's jobs in a country where open controversy isn't accepted as much as in the US. And finally, someone once said something like "I love having written, but I hate writing," which perfectly describes my thoughts.

Diaries I find interesting to read years later. I don't get any epiphanies from doing so, just nostalgia mainly. I would say I am a pretty unsuccessful person who keeps a diary.

[Tom Kwas]

I kept photographic scrapbooks of everything I was involved in, from about 1985, until my mother (my last parent) died in 2011 (totaling about 9 books). I had a pile of ephemera to put into a book, and some photos, and was waiting for a book to arrive when she died, and then I just lost heart. The books were a visual diary, as well as a partially written one.

It seems like a lot of events conspired to make me give up:

...the realization that I was getting older, and had no one to give the books to, at least no one who would care...

...the book I had been using for all those years, which was carried by Light Impressions, was no longer available, or should I say, they were never shipping...

...the fact that I loved to keep a small Olympus film camera in my pocket, and just get 3X5 prints at the drug store, and glue them into the book, but the drug stores were no longer processing film, and I didn't like the digital work flow for this...

...I had been thinking about how over the years, the act of photographing something, made it less enjoyable than just experiencing it. It seemed to go from being a fun adjunct to the event, to being a boring duty that I had to keep up.

The interesting thing is now, I'm trying to figure out how to semi-retire, get out of the state I'm living in, and scan and put together a "Blurb" book of all those stray photos (and practically none of my professional ones), from 1965, to 2010, and make a few copies, and then call it a day.

[David Zivic]

I too am amazed at how few people comment compared to how many read your posts every day. I keep thinking...over 10,000 hits a day and MY comments are always published and sometimes I am actually featured. And thank You for sharing all of this insight about journals. I will be starting mine Tomorrow. tsk. tsk.

[Your comments are always published because you're above average. But then, *ALL* TOP readers are above average. And good looking, too. --Mike]

[Ade]

We're back to Montaigne, of course. :-)

[John Krumm]

My own journals are many, but all partial. I'm not sure how common it is to have twenty or so partially filled journals, but that's how it is. Still enjoy opening one up and seeing what was happening in 1993 (Eugene, cheap apartment, newly married, temp work). That's more or less how my photography is as well, bursts of activity, then a break.
A few months ago I became immersed in Karl Ove Knausgaard's detailed autobiographical (real names and everything) novel series, My Struggle (yes, same name). Addictive stuff, at least for me. Waiting for book five and six to be translated from the Norwegian.

[Dave Levingston]

This showed up in the Facebook feed today. Interesting timing...

https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/09/04/famous-writers-on-keeping-a-diary/

[Bryce Lee]

Perhaps "we" as in the collective we, would write our comments to you, Mike more often IF you would let us know your new e-mail and
postal address. Mind the problem if actually writing (or printing as some indivudals' handwriting is poor) is the delivery of same to you. By the time the comment arrives, your blog has rolled well beyond the topic at hand and is on to other topics and happenings.

I do weekly jottings, to remind myself what happened, did not happen or perhaps simply did not anything.

[Andrew Molitor]

I maintain a blog which, to my surprise, has garnered some readership. Not a LOT, but some.

The purpose of the blog evolved almost immediately to a place for me to work out my own thoughts and ideas about photography. A place where I'd think through things I've read, things I've seen, and try to work through where those things might lead, what the consequences of this or that might be.

As a result, interestingly, I am much more personally vested in my photography. I take many fewer pictures, but to much greater effect. I've traveled quite far from what I thought, five years ago, I wanted to do with a camera. Where I've wound up is immensely more satisfying to me than where I was. I suppose I'm still traveling, to be honest, but right now here feels good.

And I got here by writing a lot.