The Unwritten

I’ve found my aversion to writing what I’m thinking on certain topics extends to the world of paper journals as well. It’s actually rather sad that we have to distinguish between blogs and journals that you hold in your hand by saying “paper journals.” It would seem more appropriate to add the prefix to the newer means of keeping a journal, not the older means. But, I’m not the one in charge of making such decisions.

Writing on a computer has always been easier to me, even back in the archaic days of the first home computers. The ability to go back and move things around, reword certain sentences, or completely remove an idea that just doesn’t work is far too handy to me overall. However, I love the idea of a hand-written journal one keeps to jot notes and ideas. I’ve mentioned journals and notebooks in past entries, so this isn’t an altogether new topic.

Several months ago I came to the realization just how many bound journals I had in my home that have yet to be written in. I like journals so much I tend to buy them, then ferret them away and discover them later wondering what I bought it for to begin with. In the case of one particular type of journal, a Moleskine to be exact, I find I have a remarkable skill of forgetting I own a blank one, then purchase one for some new idea I want to keep up with, only to leave it wrapped and discover all the others wrapped as well. As it stands right now, I have four Moleskines, still in their shrinkwrap.

There are a few that I’ve written in, and those are kept in their own special place. Most of these were used for some character somewhere, which makes it perfectly ok to chronicle their interactions and private information on the written page. But doing so with my own makes me remarkably hesitant.

We have a large box of items from my family’s history, located in the top of a closet in the house. The box is so large that we had to remove the boards above the bar in the closet and hold the box above our heads, replacing the boards beneath it. Hopefully the day will not come that we are expected to get that box back down in a quick fashion.

In that box are stacks of photographs and photo albums and journals from ancestors stretching back to the early 1800’s. Of particular interest to me is a small multi-ring bound notebook that once belonged to a cousin (long since deceased.) In it, he had a collection of bible verses that he had clipped from newspapers and glued to the pages, notes that he had typed by putting the pages in a typewriter, and comments jotted in the corners of pages and around the various clips and typed words.

I keep imagining what kind of journals I might leave behind for descendants to find. Of course, descendants would have to happen eventually, but that’s the topic of another entry. What would they think if they ran across what little I had written down. Does anyone really believe that the journals we keep electronically will ever really stand the test of time?

There might be an interesting story in that. A mystery revealed in an old journal known years ago as an “online diary” that leads the characters on a journey with electronic clues they have to search for on this slippery old technology referred to as a web.

Hmm. Now I have something else not to write about. I think I’ll have another drink and ponder the possibilities.