Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Danger of Journaling Is Introspection

bramadams.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 59 posts

Re: The Danger of Journaling Is Introspection

#31

Post by fsiefken »

I like the compassionate ending. No mud, no Lotus. It's all good; be with yourself in relationship with the phenomenal or noumenal world.

Continue to strive out the mud. Continue day in and day out to climb this unforgiving fucking cliff [..]

I know you've done your best.

There's proof.

I now started to maintain a little bliki or digital garden, part journaling, part personal wiki, research and creative expression. I can look at it from a timeline angle or tag angle, tagged collections of rational thoughts and emotional expressions.

Struggle, fear, anger, uncertainty, doubt, jealousy. If only I remember briefly, that I am more. and know deep down I can connect to that which is beyond my own little troubles. Connect to that which inspires me, art, people, peots, my mentors, my friends, current, lost or deceased My "future", ¨"past" or "higher" self or selves They are there, always, in unconditional love, as fans cheering me on.

Re: The Danger of Journaling Is Introspection

#32

Post by BoxOfRain »

rr888 wrote: post #19

I often wonder if too much introspection via therapy or yourself is a bad thing. When you are young you are filled with ideas and drive and confidence. After introspection you realize you aren't special, you aren't as good as you think you are and most people are indifferent to you or often dont really like you.

It can go the other way too, introspection can make you realise you're nowhere near as bad as you think you are. This is particularly true if you've grown up in one of those worldviews that give you a savage inner critic and attribute it to the voice of God.

Re: The Danger of Journaling Is Introspection

#33

Post by chucksta »

wikfwikf wrote: post #17
jimkleiber wrote: post #16

I built an app for micro journaling but then mostly stopped maintaining it because I was very afraid of the danger of other people hacking into it, especially if it became mainstream and high-value state targets used it. For those of you who keep journals, how much do you worry someone will gain access to it?

I do worry about this, but I also have two counterpoints when I think about it: 1. There are things which I write which are private, but if they were forcibly revealed then I would stand by my truth, including mistakes and things I'm ashamed of. 2. It's better to act as though you are in a free and decent society than to become your own policeman!

I try and remind myself that "they" are in the same position as well. I may feel some type of way about something written, but everyone's human, so do they've got something similar, I just don't know it exactly.

Re: The Danger of Journaling Is Introspection

#34

Post by cruano »

bambax wrote: post #4

I started journaling 4 years ago. I have not missed one day in 4 years (except for a couple of days after a mild bicycle accident where I was sleeping in bed). I built myself a system that sends me an email every day, and the replies get stored in an sqlite db. The system accepts answers up to five days after the date (meaning, if the replies is sent more than five days after the initial email was sent, it's not file…

That last line is probably the one thing I love about facebook, the "5 years ago today" posts that show you little snippets of your past activity. You probably wouldn't go and actively look for them, but seeing them is always a nice surprise!

A while ago I built basically what you describe but via whatsapp instead of email [1] and I think those are the perfect interfaces for filling out a journal, so many people recommend writing "as if you were writing to a friend" and that makes it so much more natural than any app or website could.

[1]https://github.com/caruano95/diarist

Re: The Danger of Journaling Is Introspection

#35

Post by bambax »

cruano wrote: post #34
bambax wrote: post #4

I started journaling 4 years ago. I have not missed one day in 4 years (except for a couple of days after a mild bicycle accident where I was sleeping in bed). I built myself a system that sends me an email every day, and the replies get stored in an sqlite db. The system accepts answers up to five days after the date (meaning, if the replies is sent more than five days after the initial email was sent, it's not file…

That last line is probably the one thing I love about facebook, the "5 years ago today" posts that show you little snippets of your past activity. You probably wouldn't go and actively look for them, but seeing them is always a nice surprise! A while ago I built basically what you describe but via whatsapp instead of email [1] and I think those are the perfect interfaces for filling out a journal, so many people reco…

Very nice! Does WhatsApp have an API that you can talk to, or is this all handled "magically" via Twilio?

(Making a smart chat app on WhatsApp sounds like a kind of fun project...)

Re: The Danger of Journaling Is Introspection

#36

Post by zw7 »

wikfwikf wrote: post #17
jimkleiber wrote: post #16

I built an app for micro journaling but then mostly stopped maintaining it because I was very afraid of the danger of other people hacking into it, especially if it became mainstream and high-value state targets used it. For those of you who keep journals, how much do you worry someone will gain access to it?

I do worry about this, but I also have two counterpoints when I think about it: 1. There are things which I write which are private, but if they were forcibly revealed then I would stand by my truth, including mistakes and things I'm ashamed of. 2. It's better to act as though you are in a free and decent society than to become your own policeman!

Good points. I especially like #2. I also had this concern, but actually in the context of pen-and-paper vs digital journaling. I was worried that a physical notebook may more easily fall into the wrong hands than digital but in this day and age it might well be the opposite.

What really bothers me about society in the context of personal notes being made public is that I feel like we don't recognize that people can change their opinions on things. Writing can be a way of thinking through and playing with ideas and beliefs that one doesn't end up holding long term. But people are routinely judged harshly for things they wrote/said/tweeted years ago even if they no longer feel the same way. Or at least that's my cynical view.

Re: The Danger of Journaling Is Introspection

#37

Post by pessimizer »

rr888 wrote: post #19

I often wonder if too much introspection via therapy or yourself is a bad thing. When you are young you are filled with ideas and drive and confidence. After introspection you realize you aren't special, you aren't as good as you think you are and most people are indifferent to you or often dont really like you.

Feeling that you are special, amazing, and that most people love you is not something common to all (or I would think even most) people. You must have had very supportive and permissive parents.

Re: The Danger of Journaling Is Introspection

#38

Post by gala8y »

network2592 wrote: post #23
gala8y wrote: post #12

Few days ago I found a very interesting, short blog about journaling (I've just posted it seperately [0]). It's very interesting for me as it combines themes of journaling per se and self-dialogue. 0. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32237190

Thank you for that insightful find which deserves more discussion comments.

I'm not sure if you are joking / being sarcastic or genuine, but I do Voice Dialogue, which is in fact talking to your voices, for a living and it is a big deal. This post is a beautiful, personal account of dialoging internally using writing. Post does not provide _content_ of any of such dialogues of the author, which, in my opinion, is elegant, yet it is written in such a way, that may be encouraging to some. YMMV.

Re: The Danger of Journaling Is Introspection

#39

Post by slothtrop »

rr888 wrote: post #19

I often wonder if too much introspection via therapy or yourself is a bad thing. When you are young you are filled with ideas and drive and confidence. After introspection you realize you aren't special, you aren't as good as you think you are and most people are indifferent to you or often dont really like you.

That seems more a symptom of cognitive distortions which would plague you whether or not you journal. Your self-perceived exceptionalism is not a determining factor for whether you are filled with ideas, drive and confidence - and most people like you just fine.

On the other side of the coin, you can't navel-gaze all day long. Action at some point is necessary. There's certainly value in deliberately calibrating them and choosing them through introspection, because we are creatures of habit - habits can work for us or against us.

I used to think action is the only hard part, but I'd suggest that making sense of our desires and making a choice is just as difficult.

Re: The Danger of Journaling Is Introspection

#40

Post by slothtrop »

langsoul-com wrote: post #5

Just never read the past, problem solved. That shit also takes way too long, 400 words per day = 146k words = 300ish pages The value of writing to me is to refine thoughts and then take action upon them. That is the here and now rather than introspection.

Isn't refining thoughts necessarily what introspection is?
Post reply on HN