Journal. Meta-stuff
It’s a dreary, gray day in the pine forest. It almost makes me want to read the brothers Grimm—the right atmosphere for wolves. Or bears! Oh, perfect—there’s a raven. Maybe Poe instead. Sometimes I wish I could enjoy spooky tales. On the other hand, by not reading spooky tales, I never have nightmares. I think I have the better end of the bargain. I shall wear my cozy clothes and crochet the new hand warmers instead.
It might be a good day for nutsy-boltsy life things, maybe even here. I want to get myself straightened out about this whole journal thing. Why am I doing it again all of a sudden after, what, a year and a half? More? As seems typical lately, I just started without really thinking about it and now am trying to figure out my motives after the fact.
I think I’ve missed it as a way of sensing connections, and of working through logistics. Before, journaling did those things, but it also had an earnest, behave-y practice vibe that I want to avoid. Is that fair to my past self? Not quite. I loved what I did then. But I think the goal was to achieve enlightenment, and I’m happier now to let any enlightenment happen accidentally instead of gunning straight for it. In all the millstone-shedding of The Great Rebellion/Burnout, it turned out that enlightenment wasn’t actually one of my values. Equilibrium, fair witness, curiosity, maybe even autonomy—I think those are all well served by this.
Shall I keep posting them on the blog? I’ve read enough posts by people who say that eventually they start writing for an audience that I’m wary. I’ll continue the experiment until I leave V’s next week and see how I feel. Bears don’t come along every day, and not every other thought I have merits a flag on it saying, “Look at me!”
Meanwhile, what about Emerson and Sisyphus? I don’t think I’ve abandoned them. It will take some oomph to get back into them, though. Inertia is a powerful thing. The “body in motion staying in motion” thing has been hard to get going in a stop-start summer. The body at rest staying at rest—easy peasy.