You've stumbled upon the blog of Paul Malan. I love my family, I love to write, I love to ride my bikes, and I love to take pictures. Maybe someday I'll think of something clever or arresting to say right here.I’ve never had the passion required to have a life-long dream, but if I had it would have been, or maybe should have been, to be a famous writer. I’ve heard that many renowned writers were prolific journal writers before they started writing, while others carry with them notebooks in which they scrawl details and ideas that occasionally wind up on the pages of a best-seller. If either of those really are the sort of habit that allows one’s writing to develop into a saleable commodity, my chances don’t look good.
I did try to keep a journal when I was younger, but much like building model cars, learning the piano, and flossing my teeth, it was just a phase. There are some who would call blogging a form of journal writing, and for a few bloggers with very bored readers it probably serves such a purpose well. But I see blogging and journaling quite differently.
Had I taken a more creative track as a teen, perhaps I would have embraced my journal more openly. As it was, the sporadic surviving journal entries compose the worst serial novel you could find. “Ate fish sticks while mom and dad went to the temple. Becky wouldn’t let me eat Quik.” “I cleaned my room today, then smashed a bunch of old toys with David’s hammer. I think some of them were mine.” “Fell asleep watching A-Team. I hate my new socks.”
Some of the entries were more creative, like the stretch in which I decided to address my journal as if she were a real person. (Of course it was a she; I can’t share my innermost feelings with another guy – feelings like, “I walked home from school with Keith and Richard. We tried to ditch Richard because he breathes funny.”) These real-journal pages all end with a cheery, “good night!” scrawled in grade-school cursive and make me wish I had been illiterate until I turned 16. But even the more recent journals are painful to read.
My first journal, my parents' failed attempt to encourage the God-inspired habit, covers gradeschool with all the clarity and insight you'd expect of a socially backwards mama's boy. I suspect I’ve always been extrinsically motivated, and I remember more than once showing my mom a journal entry simply to bask in the warmth of her appreciation for a job well done. The entries are accordingly devoid of any meaning.
After half a decade away from the habit, and convinced that my original, plastic-embroidered journal was far too childish to inscribe with my mature thoughts, I created a second journal in junior high. It was entirely to please my first girlfriend, who hoped we might both keep nightly journals and then switch the next day. When she saw my entries contained no poetry and very little of emotional substance she abandoned the campaign shortly before I abandoned her. Though she hadn’t found any sonnets, the contents of journal #2 are sufficiently ridiculous that it pains me to admit having been such an idiot at any stage in my life. Puberty is scarcely an excuse for that mess.
For most well-adjusted Mormon boys, turning 19 signals a religious awakening along with a two-year burst of journal-writing fervor. Unfortunately I had failed to set the alarm and slept through my own religious awakening, though I did scribble a few notes in my handsome leather-bound missionary journal over the course of a few harried months. This third journal is the least palatable of them all, reflecting the humiliating weaknesses and insecurities of a panicked 19-year-old child living in denial and confusion, so scared of reality that he couldn’t even be honest with himself.
I suppose it may not be a lack of vision that has kept me from writing a journal. After all, ever since my second grade teacher handed out copies of my short story to the entire class –it was a charming story about unicorns and rabbits – I have believed myself to be better than most writers. Maybe what has prevented me from being a more frequent writer is simply the haunting feeling of knowing that, in just a few years’ time, I will read what I’ve written and loathe the person I used to be.
But at least I’m not the only one. Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert talks about our eventual self-pity in his book Stumbling on Happiness:
"Shouldn't we know the tastes, preferences, needs, and desires of the people we will be next year—or at least later this afternoon? Shouldn't we understand our future selves well enough to shape their lives—to find careers and lovers whom they will cherish, to buy slipcovers for the sofa that they will treasure for years to come? So why do they end up with attics and lives that are full of stuff that we considered indispensable and that they consider painful, embarrassing, or useless? Why do they criticize our choice of romantic partners, second-guess our strategies for professional advancement, and pay good money to remove the tattoos that we paid good money to get? Why do they experience regret and relief when they think about us, rather than pride and appreciation? We might understand all this if we had neglected them, ignored them, mistreated them in some fundamental way—but damn it, we gave them the best years of our lives! How can they be disappointed when we accomplish our coveted goals, and why are they so damned giddy when they end up in precisely the spot that we worked so hard to steer them clear of? Is there something wrong with them?
Or is there something wrong with us?"
I admit I may one day re-read my blog entries and feel embarrassment, shame, or even pity for the poor author. That future shame would historically have kept me from writing much at all, but I don't treat my blog as a journal. My journals always contained the semi-honest ramblings I never intended others to see, whereas my blog contains ramblings written for an audience of friends and family. Feeling accountable for what I write helps me determine what I really believe, update the beliefs I once held, and encourages the sort of honesty to myself I have always struggled to produce.
In short, journals are ramblings for your progeny; blog entries are essays for your own good. Of course I expect most people are able to accomplish privately what I need a semi-public – potentially very public – forum to achieve. But if you find yourself writing in a journal full of the “right” thoughts and not your real thoughts, maybe like me the threat of public humiliation will be just the thing you need to free your mind.
