also wrote when she was confused, when she was curious. She wrote
in that journal as a form of therapy, so as not to unload her troubled
thoughts on the family and compatriots with whom she shared such
unenviable conditions. One of her best and most insightful lines
must have come on a particularly difficult day. “Paper,” she said,
“has more patience than people.”
Anne used her journal to reflect. “How noble and good everyone
could be,” she wrote, “if at the end of the day they were to review
their own behavior and weigh up the rights and wrongs. They would
automatically try to do better at the start of each new day, and after a
while, would certainly accomplish a great deal.” She observed that
writing allowed her to watch herself as if she were a stranger. At a
time when hormones usually make teenagers more selfish, she
regularly reviewed her writings to challenge and improve her own
thinking. Even with death lurking outside the doors, she worked to
make herself a better person.
The list of people, ancient and modern, who practiced the art of
journaling is almost comically long and fascinatingly diverse. Among
them: Oscar Wilde, Susan Sontag, Marcus Aurelius, Queen Victoria,
John Quincy Adams, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Virginia Woolf, Joan
Didion, Shawn Green, Mary Chesnut, Brian Koppelman, Anaïs Nin,
Franz Kafka, Martina Navratilova, and Ben Franklin.
All journalers.
Some did it in the morning. Some did it sporadically. Some, like
Leonardo da Vinci, kept their notebooks on their person at all times.
John F. Kennedy kept a diary during his travels before World War II,
and then as president was more of a notetaker and a doodler (which
is shown in studies to improve memory) on White House stationery
both to clarify his thinking and to keep a record of it.
Obviously this is an intimidating list of individuals. But Anne
Frank was thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen years old. If she can do it,
what excuse do we have?
Seneca, the Stoic philosopher, seems to have done his writing and
reflection in the evenings, much along the lines of Anne Frank’s
practice. When darkness had fallen and his wife had gone to sleep, he
explained to a friend, “I examine my entire day and go back over
what I’ve done and said, hiding nothing from myself, passing nothing
barry
(Barry)
#1