A Brief Defense of Journaling

Almost as long as I've been able to hold a pencil in my hand and scribble out legible words, I've been keeping a journal. Yet it's rare that I open my diary without being reminded of a quote of C. S. Lewis' I read several years ago, condemning the practice of keeping a personal journal as self-absorbed and essentially unproductive. To clarify, he was speaking not of the habit of jotting down notes or reminders for organizational or memory-aiding purposes, but of the type of diary that is intended for no one else's eyes, that enables one to dwell and reflect on one's own anxious hopes and disappointments, into which one siphons raw, unedited emotions. Of course, it was Lewis' later decision, however much he questioned and berated himself for it, to take up the habit of journaling about his feelings after his wife's death that formed the foundation for him to go on to write A Grief Observed. Yet, still, his criticism of the habit constantly lingers in my mind, demanding that I call into question my motivations for expressing my everyday thoughts and perceptions, however mundane, in writing.

Though most days the only writing I do is for my blog, I do try not to treat it like a personal diary. I don't do any free-writing here. I generally try to scribble out or at least imagine a structure for each post before I sit down and type it up. I self-edit. I don't publish everything. Though I strive for honesty and candor, I always try to remember to protect my privacy and fortify a secure inner life.

It is toward this process of securing a safe and healthy inner life that journaling becomes so valuable. In addition to prayer, meditation, and talking to friends, writing is how I process things. I believe that there are certain personal dilemmas I've encountered in life for which journaling was the most effective possible approach. Lewis spoke of journaling as a "drug" that might serve merely to "confirm the monotonous, treadmill march of the mind round one subject." And, certainly, at times it has been that for me. But more often, journaling is not a drug but a tool: a scale whereon I place a thought or a grievance to be measured. And sometimes, once I have placed it down there on the page, I am able to see that it is not really such a grave matter as to be worth pining over as I have been, and I can move on. Or, as is usually the case, I will write a sentence, and it is getting it out of my head and into physical form that frees my mind to take the next logical step along that line of thought.

I believe that everyone should journal. And though this will take different forms for different people, what it essentially results in is transferring your thoughts and experiences from their place inside your head to a place outside your head, where they may be better scrutinized, organized, and managed so that, hopefully, they don't develop into neuroses that begin to manage you. Journaling, ultimately, is more a rehabilitator than a drug, more effort than opiate. As a deliberate, creative exercise, it allows us to perform our "treadmill march of the mind" more efficiently, so that healing can take place.