Week 2: The Book Burning Type

I know  a diary is not a book in the usual sense. It hasn't been published or edited or sent to a printer. Sometimes it offers no greater insight than what the person had for lunch that day. Most are never intended to be read, so they rarely contribute anything meaningful to the world of literature. But then again, sometimes they do.

I think of the journals we have been reading for this course; Anne Frank's, Sylvia Plath's, and Sir Walter Scott, among others. I think of what the world may have been like or even my childhood for that matter if we didn't have those diaries and I can't imagine how much emptier it would be if someone had burned those diaries before they had a chance to be read. Anne Frank's diary started me on my path to writing and journaling. I read it as a 4th grader and devoured her words, emotions, and insights in my own immature way. But the impact it had on me is undeniable. I cannot say that I would have started writing and journaling as early as I did if I had not read that book.

What if your diaries hold the key to someone else's passions? What if your experiences, however terrible or wonderful, draw such an emotional response from someone that it changes their lives? What if those words were never read? Their potential never recognized? Or the fire they could have ignited in another person was extinguished before it had even had the chance to send up a spark?

That's what I think of when I think of burning diaries. True, most of our diaries will never be read by anyone other than ourselves and maybe a handful of our closest family members. But even so, their impact could be so meaningful. What if my mother had kept a diary? If she had poured her soul onto pages and pages and someday I was able to read it and understand her heart. Would I want to? Would I be better off? I am not sure. But I would have liked to chose. And maybe someday my kids will feel the same way. Maybe they will read my journals and fall in love with their mother in a new way, or maybe not. But if I burned them, that would never be an option.

So I don't think I am the book burning type. I just don't have it in me. Maybe because I think too much. Maybe because some egotistical part of myself would like to hold onto the possibility that my writing could change someone's life. I am not really sure. It's a combination of all of the above. I guess I just don't care who reads my diary. If I am dead when it happens, well it won't impact me in the slightest. And if I am alive, and heaven forbid they read something they don't like, well then that's on them for invading someone's privacy and they can live with that. No sweat off my back. I am not burning my journals any time soon.