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Haunted by journaling

Journaling is haunting me. In different places, posts, blogs, podcasts, workshops or books, I get brainwashed by the wonders of journaling, what it can do for my morning as part of a morning ritual of meditation.

For many years, I thought if only I would journal, I would have a blog full of life, ideas that never end and a calm relaxed life, with my thoughts off my head every day, not haunting me for fear of being forgotten. I love a good empty page, be it on a book or a screen. To be fair, I even do better on a screen shining back with words filling faster than my hands think they can type and my eyes semi-shut to the wonders that can come by. I don't know what the end game is, I like it to go free. But I don't journal. I can't make up my mind if I want to give it a proper go or not, I don't like the feeling at "failing" some of these initiatives, I don't have much to say every day though I have random thoughts during the day that I which could be recorded somewhere for a later time where there is a screen and a keyboard and access to blogger. In fact, I blame the fact that the blogger smartphone app is not that great (or is actually non-existent) as most times thoughts occur to me on the tube, and I am not a fan of the notes app. I have considered moving blog provider but I am pretty loyal to the place where I started so I am having a hard time doing that, even though it would probably be most effective to actually get more than a blog post a month.

So I don't journal, and more often than not by the time I hit an empty screen I have trouble dealing with the burst of thought I had so strong that I could not stop it from coming to live in a blog. It is not uncommon that by the time I hit the blog most of what I want to say has already formed in my head, in less than 5 minutes and fully baked. My only worry is that I miss the train of thought and that as the words and sentences repeat themselves I am not able to replicate them exactly as my first time. Because there is nothing like the purity of the first time a thought occurs, in its most natural form, linking chains of thought in a unique way that I can't often replicate. In a podcast I heard yesterday, journaling can be used to unleash creative thoughts, put on paper ideas on the business, life, etc. I can see that happening, but I need to find the right means to do it.

Because when I say I don't journal, I am not being quite accurate. I do journal, in fact I #bulletjournal and I am passionately addicted to it. I do it almost on a daily basis and I truly enjoy the month end moment I created as an additional to the common method, of listing what I achieved that month and how I feel about it. The feeling of finishing off tasks and opening new ones, the feeling of knowing that tasks no longer need to fit my head but are somewhere where I know I will get to them. But today is not about bullet journaling, I can do that another day. I just wanted to clarify, that the journaling I refer to is a journaling of free thoughts, creative content, un-attached writing. The exact type of writing my brain would take great satisfaction from, if I only had 115 hours in one day. Which I don't and therefore I don't journal. But I wonder if it can indeed be fitted into a routine and thereby creating a habit of creative creation, same time, same place, every day.

I feel I am being haunted by it, and I feel I may have to try it out. Perhaps September is the right month, alongside all the new things that usually happen in September. I wonder the good things that can happen. 

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