Journaling

One of the fun facts about me: I feel mentally satisfied and relief when handwriting with proper pen on proper paper. Somehow I think I’ve get the spirit of handwriting and get to enjoy myself when doing it.

However, it’s a pity that I didn’t do that often in my live. Only when feel super stressed, I ocasionally opened the website kybr.com and practice ten-finder typing as quick as I can, so that my mind have an excuse to stop overthinking or worrying. Not only because it’s so rare for me to have an chance to use physical pen, but also because the words or notes that I wrote down on paper seems useless to and may never been seen by a sencond person or even by me again.

I used to posted some of my articles or notes by just taking a picture of the paper to social media, mostly on QQ when I was before college. Seldom coments were made, and confidence were shadowed by worries about why few people echos or even pay close attention to what I wrote.

Recently I’ve been reading the book Atomic Habits, and rebuilding or updating my personal daily routines while I’m reading it. When it comes to night routine, journaling is mentioned as a quite good activity to perform few hours before bed time. The key point of journaling, as it’s explained in the book, it’s not about actually producing something perfect, it’s just good for us to let what we think about all day long get out of our brain. Journaling keeps us sane to some way.

What a good news to me! Besides, the hours before bed is just the time when my writing creativiy hits the peak.

Thoughts are vague. They haven’t been knitted together into something until we say it out to someone, even if it’s a rubber duck, or just simply write it down. The strings are wired consiously into theories, feelings, ideas, and etc. that we can concisouly sense without mixing it up with emotions.

Human emotions are fragile. It need carefull cultivation and close attention every day.

I found Bryan Johnson’s and Andrew Huberman’s night routine on Youtube. When it’s 90~120 minutes before we actually feel sleep and go to bed, our mind alerts at peak. They both mentioned one thing they would do when screen time is over and 60 minutes till GABA takes the whee — they hangout with someone.

Bryan hangouts with his son. They exchange what happened in the daytime, talk about ideas and feelings, and gossips of course. I realized it’s the vivid mimic of our ancestors sharing gosspis around the tribe when they sit around the camp fire after a nice dinner when the sun light goes out.

That’s what we should do: let thoughts out. No matter it’s to the close around us, or just to ourselves. Letting thoughts out may undermine the its existence in our mind. Bring unconscious neurons connections onto conscious level before it’s wired firmly before our consciousness even have a chance to censor it.

Hence, journaling is of explainable and noticiable value to me now. I decided to make it part of my night routine like what I’m doing right now.