Week 1: Diaries for Adults

Throughout my childhood and into my adult life I have always been fascinated by the idea of journalling about my day.  As a kid growing up in the 90's it was the trend to get your own cute diary with a lock and key to hide away all of your secrets.  However, even though I have kept a diary before I have not actually been consistent with it no matter how many of those cute journals I decided to buy.  Many of them over the years were filled only to the first few pages until I quite and later decided I needed a new start with a new journal. 

Now that there us the internet, however, there is this mass well of personal writing for anyone to read. I honestly like the idea of writing about myself online.  Especially because I would like to maybe help other people through that writing.  So, yes, I can get behind the idea of sharing your thoughts and feelings to an online platform because the more we relate and connect to one another the smaller and more tolerant the world will become. When it comes to the idea of oversharing, however, there can be a certain line drawn, but I think that line is to do with other people and not with the individual.  For example if someone was oversharing another persons personal life than that would cause a problem.

I find that in the culture of reading and people there always seems to be a deep interest to understand and view people from their writing.  So when the idea of diaries come up it is even more fascinating to many people because I think it is an opportunity to become personal and close with that writer and their story.  This makes it truly interesting to read another persons thoughts and feelings through their journalling. 

Journalling in itself is a way for the writer to not have to be creative or to crafty with their words.  In essence they can just let the words flow and not really care about the outcome because the writing is meant for them. This is why most diary writers choose to use this free flowing style. Yet the writer is not the only one to gain insight from their writing in this way.  As readers of a diary a person can gain knowledge of one persons inner workings and apply that to their being as well. 

In this stream of consciousness writing style there is often a lack of proper spelling or organization because it is mostly written without proofreading.  However, this seems to just be a part of this kind of writing style and should not be seen as a negative.  Even in the online setting I believe that this kind of "mistake" should be overlooked because more good will come from the true nature of diary writing.