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The Danger of Journaling Is Introspection

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Re: The Danger of Journaling Is Introspection

#51

Post by jimkleiber »

network2592 wrote: post #21
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?

Have you considered a more simple setup such as a local text file that is encrypted? Of course, there is always a risk but reducing the attack surface can help.

I designed it to be local-first (local-only on Android, iOS didn't let me turn off internet permissions) and using an on-device encrypted database with required password to login. I think it was as secure as I could have made it, but I think I still have the worry of not being able to protect against state-sponsored attacks, or others that can get root access on the phone and install keyloggers, etc.

While I understand those are rare occurrences, I also didn't necessarily want to become a target like Signal. But maybe I'm blowing this out of proportion because Apple and Google have an incentive to make sure their phones aren't rooted, so maybe it would be a lot safer than I imagine.

I guess I also worry about law enforcement getting devices (legally or illegally) and having access to such deep info. What we say to ourselves in a journal often can be a LOT more honest than what we say to others in text messages, emails, etc.

Any thoughts on this?

Re: The Danger of Journaling Is Introspection

#52

Post by lazide »

gbersac wrote: post #47
eddy_chan wrote: post #2

I have been journaling for 9 years now. Actually closer to 12 but we'll discount the first 3 years because it was done haphazardly handwritten in notebooks in fits and bursts. Repeatedly throughout the journals I wrote about how circular it felt whenever I was examining the deeper self. It felt like I had written this or that before and then I came to the realisation that the deepest sense of self or sense of conscio…

Damn, my experience with journaling is so different! I write whatever comes to my mind, usually some existential turmoil or insatisfaction. Just writing them make me feel so much better. It help the bad feeling go away and grow over it. Over time, those small changes adds up and I really think I'm someone very different than someone who I wouldn't without it.

Same for me - journaling has been huge, as it lets me get thoughts and feelings out of my head, and makes them ‘real’ where I can deal with them - even if dealing with them is just shrugging and moving it, or laughing at myself. It makes a huge difference in processing them.

Part of it is sometimes in my head they are swirling so fast they are hard to process or recognize, and if too much is going on, it gets frustrating and exhausting trying to keep coherent enough I can remember any of them enough to do anything about it, even to let them go.

Meditation also helps, though for meditation a huge part is just bringing my mind to be aware of my body too, so it can process whatever is going on there.

I find the work we do to be quite mentally stimulating - sometimes to the point of exhaustion, and without balancing it out with a corresponding amount of attention to our physical body and exercise, it’s easy to get unbalanced and unhealthy.

And since our minds sit on the foundation of our body, that is a recipe for not being in good shape overall.

Re: The Danger of Journaling Is Introspection

#53

Post by jimkleiber »

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 appreciate these and have some follow up questions/comments.

1. What about when these things revealed may show that you broke the law, intentionally or even accidentally?

2. Amen. I've been reading more papers lately about the emotional burden of keeping secrets and not expressing ourselves and have been personally dancing with it for years. Thank you for saying this.

I wonder if my worry is not so much if people were to gain access to what I wrote in the journal, but by being the creator of the journal, someone gaining access to what someone else wrote and either the legal repercussions of that, or more likely, the physical and emotional ramifications of such.

Re: The Danger of Journaling Is Introspection

#54

Post by jimkleiber »

zw7 wrote: post #36
wikfwikf wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I appreciate both of these points.

Maybe a more optimistic look is that if more people were that open publicly, then maybe we would judge less, recognize the uncertainty and ebb and flow of thoughts and feelings, and see ourselves and each other more humanely.

Re: The Danger of Journaling Is Introspection

#55

Post by jimkleiber »

chucksta wrote: post #33
wikfwikf wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I appreciate this reminder, even just thinking about them having a similar dilemma can help me remember they may share similar fears.

Re: The Danger of Journaling Is Introspection

#56

Post by djokkataja »

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 occasionally worry about things like that, but mainly because I sometimes write about ideas that I think some people would find very upsetting rather than because of possible legal issues as you mentioned in some other comments below. But in either case, one possible solution is to write about things metaphorically, such that you know what you're writing about, but anyone else would require some additional information to know what you actually mean.

Re: The Danger of Journaling Is Introspection

#57

Post by ashout33 »

indigoabstract wrote: post #42
indigoabstract wrote: post #7

I'm left wondering if this was a disappointment for you or you were expecting something else.. I started writing about 10 years ago, whenever I felt the need, coming to around 10-15 entries per year. Looking back through the entries, I can't say I'm a different person from the one I was 10 years ago, more like the opposite. The external circumstances have changed ofc, I've reached some goals, etc, but how I feel abou…

On a side note, I forgot to mention that my inspiration for starting to write my own was reading the 1980's journals of Jordan Mechner, the creator of Prince of Persia. Still to this day if feels like there's something magic about them.

Where can I find those journals? google search didn't turn up anything.

Re: The Danger of Journaling Is Introspection

#58

Post by krallja »

ashout33 wrote: post #57
indigoabstract wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a side note, I forgot to mention that my inspiration for starting to write my own was reading the 1980's journals of Jordan Mechner, the creator of Prince of Persia. Still to this day if feels like there's something magic about them.

Where can I find those journals? google search didn't turn up anything.

https://www.jordanmechner.com/books/journals/?lang=en_EN

Re: The Danger of Journaling Is Introspection

#59

Post by jimkleiber »

djokkataja wrote: post #56
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 occasionally worry about things like that, but mainly because I sometimes write about ideas that I think some people would find very upsetting rather than because of possible legal issues as you mentioned in some other comments below. But in either case, one possible solution is to write about things metaphorically, such that you know what you're writing about, but anyone else would require some additional informat…

Yeah, I thought of something similar in that one of the best ways to keep it safe would be to automatically inject similar yet different emotions and memories into the journal, on the idea that only I would know what I was talking about, then realized memory can be super faulty and the closer it is to being believable, the more I might actually believe the chaff.

I think what you suggest might work better, especially if it's just me, where I may remember the metaphors/inside jokes better, and from the perspective of developing the app, I don't know if that would alleviate the fear I feel for how others will use it.

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