Ernst Junger On writing in a journal:
“I would advise anybody who takes part in a war or any other unusual experience for a long period, to keep a consecutive diary, if it be only a succession of jottings which serve later on to give memory its clues. […] They force the writer of them to seize upon the essence of his experiences and to get above – if only for a few minutes a day – the familiar surroundings and to put himself in the position of a spectator. The daily experience will appear in a new light, just as a well-known landscape changes as soon as you try to sketch it. […] It takes more energy than one might think to put a few facts together day by day when it is not a matter of life and death. […] In any case the effort to observe goes with the habit of making notes, and when a man is in a situation like this that only these few years can offer and that can never recur in the same form, he ought to keep his eyes open and try to seize its unique features.”
I’ve seen and heard comments about the fact that I’m always writing in a notebook: “What, losing your memory for things?” they’d say.
I thought maybe I should quickly develop some talking points for myself:
- Notetaking (or notemaking) keeps me engaged in a way that keeps me accountable, even if only to myself.
- The act of ‘noting’ things keeps me as objective as possible, the primary goal being to capture the essence of waht is actually said or thought and not my opinion about what is said or thought. I try to avoid, whenever possible, rendering judgement on whether that thing is either good or bad. A premature judgement on such matters is usually wrong.
- And, as a jogger of memory, the notebook does play a role. I have a written record to which I can refer. I suppose the criticism that we should remember things is valid enough–but as time passes and things happen, thinking gets replaced by more thinking.
The Feeder Project 