Hagiography
In my useless youth, I wrote almost solely in the margins of school papers. I would scribble, and write my daily mantras or whatever thoughts were brewing, this worked well, as every morning I had a study hall wherein I’d read some arcane text, and chew on it the whole day.
I learned the majority of my Jung in high school this way (The school would order all the books I wanted, even bizarre ones. Did your high school have Thirst for Annihilation?)
After high school, I had to intentionally write in notebooks, but being relatively mad I found this extremely difficult. I couldn’t bear writing page to page, I had to hop around the book, picking a page that “vibed”, and then not date it. It was nuts. Having said that, good ideas came from this (2.5 year) period, including the vast majority of MemeAnalysis.
Only upon a major life shift, in which I had at last become an “individual”, did I begin taking my writing seriously, dating, structuring the notes, including tables and diagrams, etc. This has allowed me to keep excellent records of my days, something I’d done casually since age 12 by way of the notes app.
What You Actually Want to Read
Keeping notes allows you to structure your psyche.
When your thoughts fly haphazardly through your mind and mouth, they are lost to oblivion. Only the strongest ideas will reoccur without having taken note, these are generally the absolute worst or best ideas.
Similar to how recording your dreams actually establishes a dialog between your conscious ego and your unconscious, taking notes forms a relationship with your mind.
You may not know it, but you are likely in an endless siege with your mind, it hates you and wants you to die as soon as possible, you may want to be a dancer, or a writer, or a businessman. Another part of you wants to have children, and then die as soon as possible.
When we take good notes, we are sitting at a grand table in the Palace of Versailles, settling terms with all parties and drinking tea. Of course, this peace will fall apart, but still, it provides a rare opportunity to sit still, to meditate upon whatever it is.
Something that may help you write is choosing a special pen, I write solely with fountain pens, and do my symbolic work with a brush pen. Choosing a beautiful notebook can also aid greatly.
This is not a rush job, this is something very important.
Write Everyday
Writing is not that important. The important thing is making it as normal as possible. If you uphold writing as something so so significant, you’ll end up like a Christian, terrified of actually reading the book they value so much.
Just do it every day.
Write everyday and the words will flow honeyed throughout your life. You’ll learn what moves you, what words really mean, why you misspell certain words, who you like to write about, what your life is actually made of.
Thank you, this article came at a good time for me. I’ve always had a complicated relationship with physical writing, I wrote a lot of stories when I was very young in school, and was often praised for them, but at some point picking up a pen started to cause me severe wrist pain. I never knew how much was physical or how much was purely “psychic” but it caused me to resent the act of writing for a good part of my life. Practicing writing Chinese has brought a lot more joy into the act of writing recently, and hopefully I can extend that joy into English through more dedicated note taking.
I also had truly crazy OCD throughout much of my childhood, In hindsight I think it was connected to my inability to express my thoughts through writing. Sometimes I feel like the ideas in my head have started to wage war on each other out of boredom. Time to open up the vault and move the fight outside I think. On that note, got any fountain pen recommendations? Looking for something cheap and cheerful.
All the best
Grea.t . I think note taking is stupid but I take notes. Always do it on paper. Especially paper that makes the ink you're writing with look cool and wet and shiny. You can burn paper which is much easier and kewler than deleting fake crap data. Like wiping while you poop It's not gonna work idiot there's more poop coming out. Your faecēs will always exist on those servers. But if you don't want to burn it (the paper) (that you're taking notes on)(because you haven't realized you're an idiot), use good ink. it'll last as long as the paper ^and sometimes longer! So get good paper AND a good pen. And good ink. And treat it like a toy. Nobody likes the guy who only drives his Porch on the weekends and keeps it covered in the garage.
Most of the time tho, the notes you write are weaker than the best or worst ideas like memeanalysis said... which means they're unremarkable And you're marking them. Yikes. Idiot. Thomas Jefferson wrote 19,000 letters in his life. All-most all. in really beautiful script. Learn to write well. Penmanship is like. Ugh there's already a million proverbs or whatever about this. Mishima Harmony of pen and sword. It's true. My pen is made of gold and i get nervous holding it around people But I'd get nervous holding a sword around people too so I think it's harmonious. Well maybe not cuz the sword wouldn't be made of gold. Heh. Anyways Penmanship is like the sword training with your cool katana. I recommend WEll. Jefferson said it best. stolen from Monticello: Jefferson wrote to his grandson Thomas Jefferson Randolph on 16 April 1810 to encourage him to practice daily letter-writing, he added some advice on penmanship:
“take pains at the same time to write a neat round, plain hand, and you will find it a great convenience through life to write a small & compact hand as well as a fair & legible one.”
This is a huge deal. Even today, it is a huge deal. Maybe a huger one given how few people can write well. Literally. The act. Write well today. If you shine a piece of poo It'll look better than unshined poo. Speaking of which, if you think graphology is interesting Welp. Folks. The first image in this post is creepy. That guy is supposed to be writing something Good that talks about love and stuff and THE LAW!!! but it slants down REALLY A LOT. Why would he write that way, downwards, if it's meant to reach to heaven? Look. Now some guy's writing is immediately associated with evil in my mind and I haven't even read it because it looks like crapola. Write with your whole body Damn. Your whole arm. with confidence. Maybe practice spencerian script or something LOL. if you have dysgraphia No you don't God just didn't intend for you to be writing anything idiot. Write well lest ye want to be limp and have limp writing. Do that, and no other shall say nay.
Ugh I lost my train of thought. If you're rich and using substack and are reading this I wasted your time and your time is supposedly worth more than mine so get rekt. I made like no money so I didn't need to have my money stolen for war So I'm also more virtuous than you and fit through the eye of a needle. I wonder if Heaven fits on the tip of a needle. Just kidding ^^