In “On Keeping a Notebook” by Joan Didion, from her book of essays, Slouching Toward Bethlehem, she describes the importance of writing down everyday occurrences, largely because they remind us we exist. She refers to a theme found in her essay “Why I Write,” which has a series of: “I, I, I, I.”. In this essay, she writes:
“But our notebooks give us away, for however dutifully we record what we see around us, the common denominator of all we see is always, transparently, shamelessly, the implacable “I.”
The only people, she says, who can talk endlessly about themselves or their dreams aloud and expect to be indulged are the very young and the very old. She says this is as it should be. But in notebooks, we can go at length about our lives and experiences and to understand them as our “material” of this life and experience.”
In other words, we can add our voice to the flow of our lives, even if no one is listening but ourselves. These notebooks help us record and find what mattered to us. But the point is not, Didion writes, to impress ourselves on others. Here she continues, a notebook allows us to “keep in touch” with our unfolding selves–who we were at one time and better recognize who we are now:
“It is a good idea, then, to keep in touch, and I suppose that keeping in touch is what notebooks are all about. And we are all on our own when it comes to keeping those lines open to ourselves: your notebook will never help me, nor mine you.
This interweaving of our selves which matter most to our selves, hence the importance of a notebook being primarily for personal use, is a way to validate not just ourselves but our creative ideas, which often seem so hopeless in their beginnings. In this essay, Didion writes of seeing someone she didn’t know well but feeling something for her (a stylish blonde walking out of a department store in New York City), feeling something for her having aged, looking tired, and for making Didion herself recognize how time passes. This passing might not have been recognized if Didion hadn’t been in the habit of writing things down in the first place.
This full essay can be found in full in Didion’s book Slouching Toward Bethlehem and at this site: https://accessinghigherground.org/handouts2013/HTCTU%20Alt%20Format%20Manuals/Processing%20PDF%20Sample%20Files/00%20On%20Keeping%20a%20Notebook.pdf
