Journalling - to the year of looking inwardly

I am reading a very interesting book at the moment: Secret Voices - A Year of Women's Diaries, edited by Sarah Gristwood. It is a thick book with a dark green cover and a yellow braid attached for you to keep your page. It is, as you would expect, divided up into days and within each day are entries from women's diaries across the ages.

They are brief entries, no longer than a couple of paragraphs, some just a sentence, but they are revealing. Diarists range from Virginia Woolf to L. M. Montgomery to Barbara Castle to Queen Victoria, but not all of them are notable women of popular renown. Some are ordinary women, if indeed there is such a thing.

I will review it once it has been read but it is proving highly enjoyable to date.

It has inspired me not only to write every day, which I'd decided to do anyway, but also to indulge in a little journalling myself, expressing my emotions and my insights from each passing day. I've even chosen to comment on the weather in a short phrase. The place where I record my thoughts is a diary of distinction, a book of weight, coloured with a motif and a clasp but it is not big. Saturday and Sunday are half pages so I am having to be concise, restricted by the page and the size of my handwriting. This is no bad thing and connecting with a pen again has been comforting and enlightening, like rediscovering a part of myself that has been boxed up.

I am liking this exploration of self so far and I hope that I can continue it throughout the year. It has started well, 2026, for me with a brighter outlook and a determination to do more, not just necessarily for myself but for others too, and to be mindful and respectful at all times. These were things I would probably do anyway, but they need to be upheld now more than ever.

I think this introspection is important. I'm not one for over-analysis - I tend to acknowledge and move on - but the identification of how you feel and having the ability to express it is inordinately important. In a global society that is shunning human expression for its digitised approximation, I think this is crucial.

Phones, screens, reels, memes, videos - all require you to look at them. I'm all for sharing but does it have to be for self-gratification? I don't think so. And I have no problem with self-gratification but when it depends on the validation of others in order for it to feel "good', then it becomes tricky. This is one of the reasons I am writing - simply for me. I'm not expecting to share it here. It will be an amalgamation of writing, both creative and autobiographical - a record of me at a certain time of my life, reflecting back a contemporary view redolent of my circumstances. It will be self-indulgent nonsense, for the most part but the idea of doing it to me is extremely refreshing and almost like an act of defiance to the world of zeroes and ones that is swarming around me.

How do you feel about keeping a journal? How do you feel about handwriting? Is this an antiquated practice, this writing it all down, when it can be expressed in the visual? Is it too "deep" for our times?

I'd love to know your thoughts so please drop a comment. I will try and respond in a timely manner - if I'm not too busy writing my journal.