I highly recommend keeping a journal. Fifteen years ago I instructed people how to do it in the "best way". Today I'm less certain that there is a "best way". Each of us writes a journal in the best way we know, and for our own purposes. Do it. Over time your way of doing it will change, and become more effective for you.
Here is a page from the back of Journal 44, written mostly in 2004. This page and three following pages are a summary of the key ideas in that journal. It's pretty untidy, but it wasn't written for you, it was written for me.
Key Ideas
How do we get PAID for mind work?
I can't transfer my knowledge to you except by publishing or teaching.
Copyright and patent protection is counter productive.
Useful tools may have no physical form.
If we assume that value is based on scarcity, we create conditions that limit the role of knowledge.
Bateson:
Information is the difference that makes a difference.
Information makes the dance possible.
Information is experienced.
Information hording is counter productive.
BUT information transfer takes TIME.
MY TIME is MY LIFE.
Information is passed like a river (flows).
People need to ENGAGE with the river.
Information is perishable - (The) river passes to the sea.
I try to keep what is meaningful.
Engage "receptors" ----> Choosing my data ----> Via my mind ----> (My) Information
This summary in my journal goes on for three more pages.
How do I get started?
Get yourself a hard covered exercise book and start. Try to write something most days. A little bit is fine.
I didn't do this, but I recommend the practise of many others. Before writing, sit in silent meditation for 15 minutes, clear your mind. (I expect you'll find that difficult, but that's OK.)
The original purpose of my journal was to collect professional and business ideas, so I wrote a lot about books I was reading, or meetings I attended. Mostly my journal is not highly reflective in a personal way, but sometimes it is.
I've seen the film "The C Word" based on a book by Lisa Lynch, a young woman facing breast cancer. Lisa was a journalist, and when she was diagnosed with breast cancer she began a blog about here treatment and recovery. Although Lisa died in 2013 her blog "Alright Tit" remains in her honour. The blog became the raw material for her best selling book, "The C Word".
A blog is a public journal. I do NOT recommend writing your journal as a public document. Keep your journal as a private space. There you can write exactly what you are thinking, without concern about public reaction (or the reaction of family and friends).
Write your journal on paper or on the keyboard, as your choose. I find on paper it' s far easier to make a diagram rather than use text, but if you could read my journal you would see that it's mostly text.
By all means also write a blog for the public to read. That will encourage your writing, and encourage you to write as well as you can, and thoughtfully, and with consideration for your readers. Think about your journal being the soil from which your blog grows. You might write in your journal every day, and in your blog once a week or once a month. Your journal will have lots of content, and your blog will contain only selected and crafted writing.
Begin with Your Own Health Diary
The simple process of keeping your own data, of writing your own record about how you are and how you change from day to day has the potential to change your life. You can make that as simple or as complex as you choose. In the process you will begin to see new things, and you will change what you do.
[John Veitch]"I can't build that sort of written record about you. But you can in two weeks or a month. I encourage you to do so. The thing I most regret in getting started, is at first that I did not have that record. And second, that once I realised better health was easily achievable, I changed too much too quickly, and then I became unsure which of several changes, was driving the success I was having."[/John Veitch]
So, create a start-point, a benchmark record if you like, of how you are now. We can't stress too much how important this simple first step is. Make a written record.
Your Example for your Grand Children: We are passing on to our grand children, a world that we have helped make more dangerous and less hospitable to human existence. They will not appreciate the value of your journal writing, but you cam use your journal do develop strong ideas that allow you to live a in a thriving way.
Recognise your tribe, your family and close associates. The mission of the tribe is the continuation of the tribe for the next 1000 years, and your grand children, are as far into the future, as you can reach. The last thirty years of your life has a purpose, the welfare of the tribe.
We've discussed many things one might choose to do in these pages. How do you change the habits of a lifetime? Knowing that you should is one thing. Actually making the changes is another. If your tribe is helping you make this change it's much easier. If your tribe is engaging in anti-life-giving habits and activities, choose to be different. Being different has a cost, but your journal will help you stay the course. It's easier if you can find friends who share your journey. Don't avoid joining groups, both online and face to face.
In particular, making changes requires help and support from your life partner. With that most things are possible.
Cities are both good and bad:
Most of us live in cities. Cities make it possible to earn a living and do very little but sit about. Cities force us to ignore other people. We create a personal space that shuts out the world, to protect our sanity. But we can over-do that, and become isolated and lonely.
Cities make it possible to engage in a rich social, civic and business life, but you need to make that choice.
