A couple of days after graduating from college, I had a quarter-life crisis. It felt like I was doing everything right. I got into the University of Chicago, emerged myself in the Life of the Mind™️¹, worked my butt off to get good grades and internships, and landed a high-paying job after college. Yet I still felt like something was missing. That’s when I picked up journaling…again. About a decade ago, I was helping my parents clear out the basement when I found a bright pink journal. I flipped through it and realized it was a diary I had kept from when I was eight years old (I had to do the math based on the dates haha). I waxed on about the difficulties of making friends at the new school my parents had just enrolled me in. I contemplated the near-headache feeling of fresh braids my mother rushed to do on me before church one Sunday. I recorded seemingly mundane moments. Only looking back did I appreciate that the friend I finally made at my new school is still a meaningful part of my life (and funny enough just texted me as I was drafting this!). What also blew me away were some of the stories I wrote. They were like the perfect mix of parables and fables. I waltzed through seemingly simple stories conjured up by an eight-year-old Shae, but filled with layers of meaning and lessons for a twenty-eight-year-old Shae. I’ve since lost that old journal but found a historical piece of myself. What do I mean by this? That old pink diary had preserved a small section of my life. A sliver of my personality, preoccupations, and preferences in a series of journal entries that I, Shae the Historian, can now draw new insights on. Many of the things recent college graduate Shae stressed about didn’t end up mattering in the long run. I was exactly where I was supposed to be, doing what I was supposed to be doing. In the long view of history, it will all eventually make sense long after I am gone. Journaling brought me to this point as a historian and as a person. So this week I am encouraging you to write in a physical journal (if you don’t already).
Why Keep A Physical Journal?Here are some valuable insights I’ve gained as a historian who has spent countless hours in archives reading journals and diary entries. The Art of HandwritingSometimes I learn more about a person based on what they’ve crossed out or written in the margins. Handwriting can reveal how a particular person processes the people around them and the events that have happened to them. More than just grammatical errors or missing words, you can find whole lines of thought scratched out. There are some journals I’ve seen with coffee stains, spilled ink, and accidental fingerprints. It’s the physical page that gives the journal so much value, not just the words. For the past few years, I have consistently journaled in a Leuchtturm1917 Medium (A5) notebook. It has now become my go-to notebook. Tucked away in the back flap of a freshly unwrapped notebook, you find the following pamphlet:
Writing is thinking with the hand. In college, I had a Professor who had a no-laptop policy inside his classroom. We had to take all of our notes by hand. When I was in college, digital notebooks were just taking off (This was the pre-Notion era). Also, I went to college in an era before modern technology such as “scan to text”, AI, or mobile scanners. My professor encouraged us to take the time to review and think deeply about our lecture notes as we copied them over to our laptops. He was essentially helping us to think with our hands. Researchers have confirmed recently that writing by hand, even with a tablet and stylus, leads to more brain activity and new synapses being formed to create memory. (Source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-writing-by-hand-is-better-for-memory-and-learning/) Distraction-free ReflectionsAnother reason to keep a physical journal is to guard against distractions (at least the ones you can control). I get distracted very very easily. While I keep a digital journal on me for when I am on the go, I savor those quiet, de-technologized moments. I’ve come to appreciate the calm I experience when it’s just me, my pen, and my journal. No notifications are popping up, phone calls, or an opportunity to satisfy a sudden urge to google something random when I’m writing in my physical journal. In our modern world, moments like these are rare, so we have to be intentional about pursuing them. How Do You Want To Be Remembered?Finally, keeping a journal is all about you when you’re writing it, but all about everyone else for the generations after you that may read it. What seems like trivial musings to you now could be the very thing that inspires or sparks someone else’s imagination down the line. So I have some questions for you: How do you want to be remembered? What small details from your day do you wish got preserved? What’s one moment in your life you’ve never told anyone about, a moment that only lives in your memory? All these are questions I ask myself when I visit archives. As I’ve written about before², archives tell very limited, curated, and culled stories of people and institutions. This leaves the average historian wanting to know more. Of course, you will never know everything about an event or person, but we often look for different perspectives. If a historian was writing about this past week, here are an example of some questions that would come to mind:
These are simple questions that can lead to such profound and compelling stories about living in this day and age. History books upon history books have been written about presidents, generals, and the upper echelons of society, but what about the average human being? You don’t have to be prime minister to be worthy of admiration in the halls of history. What you are doing right now, wherever you are in the world, is worth writing history about. Will you start writing in a physical journal? Comment below or respond to this email. As always I enjoy hearing from you all! Until next time,
Hi, I’m Shae and I am a doctoral candidate in History at Harvard University. I discovered my passion for education while teaching at the college and ever since then, I’ve been on a mission to bring the classroom learning experience to all of you. I believe everyone deserves a world-class education, so I’m so glad you’re here 🤓. Here are last week’s announcements if you missed them:
*TLDR: I launched my personal substack for people interested in learning more about co-working accountability groups, writing, and life as a grad student here: https://shaeomonijo.substack.com/subscribe1 Based on Hannah Arendt’s unfinished work by the same name, this was one of the many mottos of the University of Chicago. It’s a life of rigorous inquiry and contemplation of all things. Another common motto of the University of Chicago is that it’s a place “where fun goes to die.” 2 What is an archive?
SHAE THE HISTORIAN is a newsletter for history lovers seeking to search the past, learn something new, and contribute to the archive of life. If you enjoyed this story, feel free to share it with someone. Stay curious, friends!
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subota, 6. travnja 2024.
Why should I journal?
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