Journaling does not have any “rules”. One can just grab pen and paper and write whatever comes to mind. You are not forced to write about any events or emotions in particular, nor you are required to meet a word count. You just write about anything for as long as you want.
But journaling is a coping mechanism after all, arguably a low-cost one. With time, patience and a bit of courage, it does have an end goal: to help us process emotions, thoughts and experiences. When we write those things down, they have less control over our lives.
In plain terms, we take out the rubbish regularly so bad odours don’t spread around the house. Those feelings are no longer amorphous and stinky joy-sucking entities living in our heads, they become just words in a notebook (or laptop in my case). Words are easier to understand, cross out and transform.
Until now, I have been avoiding difficult topics, like Super Mario jumping and dashing through a level without paying attention to man-eating piranhas. The most personal thing I have written about was the surprisingly sad feeling of selling my car last month.
There was a study in 2013 involving 40 people suffering from Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) where participants were asked to practice journaling over several weeks. The study concluded that participants who were more consistent and expressive with their writing “had significantly lower (and subclinical) depression scores than the control group”. In other words, writing frequently about their emotions decreased depression symptoms.
Now, I am not depressed, but I definitely support the idea that confronting bigger emotions results in more meaningful effects (and probably better writing) as opposed to writing about other mundane topics.
However, there is no reason to do those things in public. As much as I would like others to find my journals helpful, my current view is that some things should remain private, only shared with a tiny circle of people. There is no need to go through my trash, take pictures of it and post it online.
Don’t get me wrong - I like gossip as much as the next person, but I also struggle with people trying to gain notoriety by publicly sharing their traumas. Sometimes, I find myself thinking “Wow, how amazing of them to share this story with strangers online” followed by “Do we need to know that? is this the best way of going about it?”
This leaves me with another angle for my journals: fiction.
Once a month, I will write a short fiction story that helps me to achieve catharsis while maintaining certain details private. I could write a fable about a pack of wolves playing chess underwater that’s actually a metaphor explaining how a girl rejected me when I was 11 thus making me incredibly insecure about sharing my romantic feelings. That way, everyone is a winner.
It’s an exciting step towards making this writing endeavour more meaningful to me and more interesting to you.
Furthermore, I want these letters to become more than just mental ramblings exploring my psyche. I thought that having a publishing schedule would be a great idea to add structure to the whole operation. So far, this is how a monthly schedule would look like in 2023:
Week 1: Fictional piece inspired by some significant life event or feeling.
Week 2: Educational piece inspired by something that makes me feel curious.
Week 3: Nerdy piece where I present you something I love with annoying detail.
Week 4: Off-topic. Everything else I feel like writing that does not fit the above goes here.
I hope you enjoy the evolution of This Should Have Been an Email, and more importantly, I hope that I can maintain it!
Watch out for another issue of Stuff Around the Internet on Sunday and the first fiction story next Wednesday. Until then, you can catch up on previous stuff (in case you missed it):
If you like where this is going or have any suggestions, let me know. It only takes a minute but it gives me enough external validation to keep going for another week.
Peace out, kiddo.
Cesar.