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The Limits of Journaling

I started writing in a journal during my senior year of highschool. It's a good emotional outlet when you need it, but after doing it for 4-5 years, it's been feeling a bit fruitless. You start to realize that you can't always just map out every problem that falls in front of you. Or you can, but it doesn't matter because you're still just writing in a notebook.

You're talking to a wall. And there's nothing wrong with that, so long as you don't expect the wall to talk back.

This is my first post on voidtext, so I'm giving a little bit of context to the type of writing I'm used to. It normally happens in an composition notebook, or on a .txt file. It normally focuses on anxious preening. I've been interested in doing something a little more open, a little more public, and dare I say, a little more useful.

I find it difficult to post on conventional social media for reasons that are a little unclear to me, but seem to be shared amoung other neocities webbuilders. Even here, on this remote little sliver of the internet, I'm a little hesitant. I'm worried that this is stupid and meaningless. I'm worried that I don't have anything to offer to you.

People read for a lot of reasons, but if you're like me, you read because you're looking for a life preserver. You wade through texts waiting for that perfect arrangment of words to float within your reach, only to get to the end empty-handed, still just treading water. And your arms are getting tired.

I guess I'm a little insane for making that some sort of internal standard, considering how rare you actually come across that kind of writing. But I really don't want to leave you hanging like that.

- March 11th, 2023