Writing Lab: On Being a Diarist

Prompt: "Do you look at your blog as a way to tell your story? Do you consider yourself a general diarist?"

That's definitely how I look at my blog. I would also probably say that I think of myself as a diarist, especially these days. I've tried to branch out and embrace other types of writing to the same extent I've always embraced journaling and diary keeping over the years, but it never seems to hold my interest for long.

This has even been the case with my other blogs on Blogger. They started as attempts to build resources for other people's consumption or write more generally about topics I care about -- like food, or astrology, or spirituality, or freelancing. However, they ultimately wound up settling into alternate diaries -- places I can go to record my thoughts and experiences as they relate to those topics. I do occasionally write or include resource articles as well if I decide I'm in the mood, but those are few and far between.

Narcissistic as it might sound, I fascinate myself, so I'm my own favorite topic. I love using writing to explore my thoughts and feelings about different things. I love recording things that happen in my life. I love exploring my past and my relationships to other people, as well as to the rest of the world, through my writing. I enjoy the act of at least potentially sharing what I write with other people, but I write mostly for myself.

I suppose it is my way of telling my story. I don't spend a lot of time thinking about the future or anything, but when I do, I realize that I'm not the sort of person that will leave much of a legacy behind. I don't have children, nor do I want them. I've never been particularly driven to "make society a better place". Nothing in me ever wanted to cure cancer, or invent something that changes the world, or be the power behind the next big household name either. People -- and society in general, for that matter -- make me dry heave the great majority of the time.

What I am driven to do is create. I've made art and written fiction here or there, but I've been the most productive by far when it comes to my personal journaling, diary keeping, and blogging. In other words, I've been consistently focused on telling, preserving, and remembering my own story since I was little. I've done this without even really thinking much about it. That's how natural and instinctive it is for me to sit around and journal my ass off when I'm in the mood to just... write. I don't lead an exciting life, but it's my life all the same. And I suppose the story I'm weaving it into over time will be my legacy. I'm hardly curing cancer over here or anything, but it works for me.