Journaling

00:10] Rory: My name is Rory O’Toole.

[00:12] Matt: And my name is Matt Schultz.

[00:14] Rory: And this is how to be the.

[00:17] Matt: Podcast where we discuss ancient wisdom, modern hacks, paperback self help books, and pithy.

[00:23] Rory: Platitudes in the hopes of figuring out the best way to live this one precious and wild life. Do you feel the urge to record your thoughts? A desire to keep a record of your daily life? See the therapeutic benefits of writing down your feelings? If so, join us as we discuss journaling.

[00:49] Matt: You.

[01:05] Rory: Matt, welcome to 2024.

[01:07] Matt: 2024.

[01:11] Rory: Anything you’re looking forward to this year?

[01:14] Matt: Wait, you know what’s weird? No, this is crazy. Okay, so I feel like all throughout the teens I was like, oh, you know what’s cool? We’re going to live through the 20s because the roaring 20s, it’s going to romantic. But somehow I failed to clock when that started and I’m only clocking it now.

[01:37] Rory: Okay, well, you better. Yeah, I guess. I don’t know. You better go out and bob your hair.

[01:45] Matt: Yeah, we’re deep in the 20s. These are the that they’ll learn about in the 90s.

[01:52] Rory: We’re in the mid twenty s. In our mid thirty s. Yeah.

[01:57] Matt: My stepsister, born in 2000, she gets to just be the year.

[02:02] Rory: What a great year to be one. Yeah.

[02:06] Matt: Easily calculatable.

[02:08] Rory: Yeah, easily calculatable. 87. A seven. Bad for me.

[02:13] Matt: Yeah, 88, same deal.

[02:15] Rory: At least 88 is nice though. It’s like sultry. The double eight.

[02:21] Matt: Yeah, suspicious.

[02:23] Rory: It’s like a curvaceous woman walking down the hall. Boom chicka boom chick.

[02:34] Matt: There’s someone who I used to call boomba boomba.

[02:39] Rory: Yes, there was someone who. Someone that we went to college with.

[02:42] Matt: Yeah, she really had that look of know the saxophones just start playing when she gets those sleazy saxophones. Funny that our sleaziest president played the sleaziest instrument.

[03:02] Rory: Yeah, you’re right. That’s a good point. Saxophone.

[03:06] Matt: Like, you know that song? Yes, that song.

[03:11] Rory: Yeah. Gross. Like 80s slow. 80s soft jazz. Gross.

[03:18] Matt: Gross. Get you with your hair down.

[03:21] Rory: I let my hair down. Needs a brushing through. Looking to wake up next to this.

[03:26] Matt: Like Bryce Dallas Howard right now.

[03:28] Rory: Oh, did you see that movie I’m starring in?

[03:30] Matt: Yeah, that’s an interesting genre of like.

[03:35] Rory: I would see it with my mom.

[03:38] Matt: What’s it called? Cheshire? No, Argyle.

[03:41] Rory: Argyle.

[03:42] Matt: Yeah. She writes mystery novels and stumbles into a real kind of.

[03:48] Rory: It’s not based on anything, is it?

[03:50] Matt: No.

[03:51] Rory: I like that idea that it’s not based on anything. Like a toy.

[03:54] Matt: Yeah, it’s not based on that popular line of Bryce Dallas Howard action figures that all the playing with. They’re the new.

[04:07] Rory: Okay, should we just get into the topic then?

[04:09] Matt: Yeah, but wait, hold on 1 second, because I want to have my notebooks here for reference.

[04:21] Rory: Oh, did you take notes?

[04:23] Matt: No, but we’re talking about notebooks.

[04:25] Rory: Yes, we are talking about journaling today, which often requires a notebook. Could you even imagine journaling on a computer?

[04:32] Matt: Yeah, and like a Google Doc.

[04:35] Rory: I think I tried to do that in my childhood. All the failed attempts at journaling. Oh, Lordy. Yes. I think this is a perfect topic for the beginning of the year because there have to be a large swath of people whose New Year’s resolution is to journal.

[04:49] Matt: Yeah. So let’s start there. Because my childhood and adolescence also was filled with failed attempts to be a consistent journaler.

[05:03] Rory: Yes.

[05:04] Matt: So why is this something that our society considers virtuous? Why is it like exercise or eating? Right.

[05:13] Rory: Well, it’s interesting because journaling has obviously been around for so long, right. And now I would say in today’s world we consider there to be like therapeutic benefits to it. But certainly hundreds of years ago they wouldn’t have put it in those words. But maybe they thought that there were therapeutic. Maybe the reason has changed. Maybe it used to be to really record the events of the day. A captain’s journal.

[05:41] Matt: Yeah, captain’s log. But there’s also a christian history, a protestant history to journaling.

[05:48] Rory: Tell us more.

[05:49] Matt: So I don’t know so much about it, but I do know that when we had our Christianity seminar, which is part of rabbinical school, you do little seminars where you learn about other religions. The Methodist guy that we talked to talked to us about journaling as a spiritual practice in protestant tradition, as a means of discernment, the practice of discernment, understanding, basically. Kind of like what people mean when they say, I’m going to pray on that. I’m going to sort of seek to understand what the right path is, what I’m feeling, what God wants from me, yada, yada, yada. A method of contemplation.

[06:37] Rory: Yes, absolutely. I think the first diaries were Eastern and Middle Eastern, which I think we certainly idealize. And maybe there’s truth to the fact that it’s really this. I mean, the Middle east, the fertile crescent, where all the great religions. Not great, where many religions came from in the east. So meditative over there.

[07:01] Matt: Did you read about the pillow book?

[07:03] Rory: No. What’s that?

[07:04] Matt: The pillow book is the diary of an ancient chinese courtesan.

[07:12] Rory: Oh, sexy.

[07:15] Matt: No, I guess she wasn’t a cortisan. She wasn’t like a sex worker.

[07:19] Rory: No, cortison is just. Isn’t a cortisan. Just someone who lives at court?

[07:24] Matt: She just lives at court. But I think it’s acquired horish connotations. Okay, so she was a chaste courtesan. She lived at court. She contemporaneous with tale of the Genji. Wait, is tale of the Genji japanese or Chinese?

[07:43] Rory: It sounds chinese to me.

[07:45] Matt: Are you researching it?

[07:46] Rory: I’ll look it up right now. Japanese.

[07:48] Matt: Okay, so my apologies. I think this is a japanese journal, then, and I haven’t read the whole thing, but it’s absolutely beautiful. Her sharp little social observations. It’s really a work of art.

[08:05] Rory: Yes. This was in the Hayen period in Japan during the early thousands.

[08:18] Matt: Oh, okay. So not as ancient as I thought.

[08:20] Rory: I guess not. No.

[08:22] Matt: But pretty old.

[08:24] Rory: Very old. Very old and important.

[08:27] Matt: Yes.

[08:28] Rory: So there’s that. I don’t know. I think that if you’re keeping a journal, it’s really hard to separate the self consciousness of it, of that someone in the future could be reading it. I find it nearly, especially as a child, nearly impossible that the idea that these writings would be important one day.

[08:50] Matt: Oh, yeah.

[08:52] Rory: Future generations. And if not also, though, myself in the future.

[08:59] Matt: Yeah.

[09:00] Rory: And that I find very difficult about journaling.

[09:04] Matt: Well, I’m at the end of one of my notebooks right now. We can call it a journal. It’s morning pages, which I’ll explain quickly. The practice of morning pages writing three pages freehand every morning comes from Julia Cameron’s hitbook the artist’s way, which is about healing your inner creator. And I’ve been doing this for years, and with periods of greater and lesser intensity, but pretty consistently for about six or seven years or something like that. And it’s kind of the first time that I’ve been able to a, consistently journal, and b, not worry about the future with it, because it’s very much set up the way she sets up this practice. It’s like it’s not about the product. It’s about the process of writing. And now that I’m on the final pages of this nice green notebook that I’m holding, and I have about eight of these that I’ve filled and kept, sometimes I haven’t kept them. I’m like, do I want to keep this? That’s why I keep asking myself, and I’m processing it in the pages. I’m like, do I keep this book or do I destroy it? Because first of all, if I keep it, how many of these am I going to have by the time I die? Billions?

[10:38] Rory: A lot.

[10:40] Matt: Number two, because it’s really just a way of processing anxieties when I do read through it, it’s very depressing. Makes it sound like I have horrible life because I only write about what anguishes me.

[10:53] Rory: Right.

[10:54] Matt: Number three, I wouldn’t want anyone reading it if I died. And you never know when you’re going to die.

[11:03] Rory: No, that’s true. That’s why you have to leave instructions for your spinster sister to burn all of your work.

[11:09] Matt: So I’m leaning towards destroy.

[11:12] Rory: Well, now, you’ve been proselytizing morning pages. You preach the good word of morning pages, and I have been on the morning pages bandwagon before, certainly. Usually when I’m in periods of high anxiety, because I really think it helps with high anxiety at times. And so I used to do my morning pages, right? When I got to work in the morning in my office, I would be there usually first, before anyone else. I’d do my three morning pages, and then I would immediately rip them out and take them to the shredder, because the fear of someone accidentally finding them, especially because I’m doing it at work. Very conspicuous place. But just in general, even if I was doing it at home. Let’s get rid of these, because they are concerning.

[11:59] Matt: Yeah. I mean, if you treat it therapeutically, then it’s basically the transcripts of your therapy, which I think most of us would not want our loved ones to be listening in on.

[12:10] Rory: And that includes me in the future? Yes.

[12:13] Matt: Future me. Yeah. I don’t necessarily think future me wants to be a part of this. But then I was like, I do like the idea of having some sort of record. So then I have this other notebook that I hadn’t used for anything, and I thought, what if I start doing the regular kind of journal in this, writing down a little, a bit about the day, what I did, what I felt, in as non embarrassing terms as possible, and I sat down to do that today. I thought about yesterday. I wrote an entry for January 1. I thought, good time to start it. But I was so triggered, because I was flooded with all those memories of starting journals as a kid. And I was like, why am I doing this kid thing? I’m 35. I’m starting a journal. It felt so absurd. Yeah, we’re doing an episode about it, so just do it. You can quit at any time.

[13:17] Rory: Okay. How’d the entry go?

[13:20] Matt: The entry went fine. I think there’s something appealing about being able to say, oh, January 1, 2024. What did I do that day? Especially as someone with not a great memory. But then I’m like, what am I trying to hold on to? That question comes up for me, too. I’m like, is there something, like, there was a period when I would write down every book I read, and it was really trying to grab hold of something that’s not graspable for a slightly pathological reason. Almost like being a hoarder. I’m like, is this a kind of hoarding?

[14:00] Rory: Yeah. It’s interesting because there was one year of my life, I kept a really detailed diary, like almost daily entry, 7th grade. Terrible time to have a diary from, I’m going to tell you that. And I found it, like, four or five years ago, and it really shook me, rereading this, because, really, the record that I was keeping was so different than the memories I had of myself and my experience of being in 7th grade.

[14:34] Matt: Wow.

[14:36] Rory: I was like, whoa. I talked so much about hating school. Don’t remember that at all. That’s not my experience of 7th grade. I always fighting with my mom. Never thought of myself as someone who fought with my mom. Don’t have any memories of those things. Like, terrible memories of things that. Yeah. And I was just such a idiot. 7th grade, and I always had this, a sense of myself as always being like, a little bit wise, precocious. No.

[15:13] Matt: This is turning me off. I’m not going to keep doing this journal.

[15:16] Rory: Well, I mean, you’re 36 now. You’re not 13 still.

[15:20] Matt: But that’s why I’m like, this journaling in that way. I don’t think it’s for me. I think it’s. Spoiler alert. I’m not sure it’s how to be.

[15:34] Rory: I mean, that’s the beauty of the morning pages, because correct me if I’m wrong, is like, she even instructs you to not go back and read them, right?

[15:42] Matt: Yeah. There are a few moments where she’s like, now go back and look after, like a month as part of this journey that you’re. Because when you read the book, it’s like a course. You’re doing it in this, like, is.

[15:54] Rory: It a course in miracles?

[15:55] Matt: Oh, yeah. So when you’re reading the book, it’s like a course. So you’re doing the morning pages. She’s guiding you through it. There are other assignments, like writing a letter to your inner child that you’re doing, but then when you finish the book, you’re on your own with this practice, and some people go back and look at theirs. I really rarely, rarely do. Sometimes when I finish a notebook, I’ll look back at it, because this one’s interesting. This one starts January 2020 at a lot of gaps. So that’s, like, quite a span of time that had some big historic events in it, like Covid starting rabbinical school. Equally big historic events in the course of human history.

[16:48] Rory: But that’s the thing, I guess the thing about a journal like that, or morning pages is that you’re not like, today. There is a virus going around the world that could kill everyone. No exposition in morning pages.

[17:07] Matt: Yeah, there’s no exposition. And, yes, sometimes I’m like, I remember when Covid was happening. You and me talked about how we did wish we had some sort of record of what we were thinking about the situation. Just because the situation was changing so fast that we couldn’t remember what level of emergency things felt like before.

[17:32] Rory: Right. And then now you could keep that notebook then.

[17:36] Matt: Yeah. Would that be interesting?

[17:38] Rory: I have no idea.

[17:40] Matt: What is this for? It brings an existential crisis just thinking about it.

[17:47] Rory: There’s always time to destroy it. Don’t worry.

[17:50] Matt: Yeah, I guess. Why does the thought of keeping a journal make me feel anguished in this way?

[17:58] Rory: I don’t know.

[17:59] Matt: I’m like, what is it for? Who is it for? Who is this future me? Where is my life? Where’s the final goal of my life? If I’m amassing all these memories and this documentation? I guess you’re just like, you just amass it and you amass it and then you die. Which makes no, like, just, why keep a journal?

[18:19] Rory: That’s true. I don’t know. It’s like, where would we be without the diary of Anne Frank, though? I mean, the whole reason I think I wanted to keep a diary was because of her.

[18:28] Matt: Oh, of course. But she had a clear know she wanted to be a writer, and she wanted to write about the war. And there was that call on the radio for war diaries. She knew what she was preparing it for publication. She was aware of that. That was her intended goal for it.

[18:55] Rory: Obviously not the same age, keeping a diary. And I’d have to say hers was a slightly better quality than mine.

[19:02] Matt: Yeah.

[19:05] Rory: And I’m sure I thought mine was publishable quality at the time.

[19:10] Matt: There’s a period in my childhood journal where I start addressing the journal as dear angel. Because she called hers Kitty.

[19:25] Rory: Oh, yes. I wanted to give mine a nickname, too.

[19:28] Matt: I’d be like, dear angel, how you listen to me. Without saying a word. I wish I could hear what you think.

[19:36] Rory: Yes. She really personified her journal, didn’t she? Her diary. She was really in conversation with it.

[19:45] Matt: Yeah, it was an interlocutor of sorts.

[19:51] Rory: But do you still do that thing where you write a letter to yourself?

[19:57] Matt: Yes, I do. And that is certainly a form of journaling. I’ve done this since 2012. Oh, my goodness. It’s this website called myfutureself.org, which is a website where you can send a letter to yourself a year in the future. You can set it for any time.

[20:16] Rory: You pick the date.

[20:18] Matt: It’s an amazing practice. So this is the way I do it. And I’ve been doing it, as I said, for years and years and years. I keep it pretty brief. I write a little note about what’s going on in my life. What am I reading? What am I listening to? What am I up to? What’s going on at work. I do a list of people in my life. Dad, mom, Rory, Claire, all these people, my brother, what’s going on in their lives. Just like a sentence, like the headline, you know, it’s amazing because, you see, like, my brother got married, and it’s like, my brother had a baby. You see someone’s life unfold in these little snapshots of time, and then I usually involve a word of encouragement to my future self. Okay, like, what I’ll be like right now, my goal is really to do x, y, and z. But if it still hasn’t happened yet, that’s okay. Don’t be too hard on yourself. You’re doing great right now. I’m sure you’re still doing great. I don’t know how things are unfolding for you, but I look forward to seeing it. And I’m sure you’ve got this.

[21:33] Rory: There’s so much. Yeah, there’s just so crazy. Are we even the same human being now? And tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

[21:42] Matt: I mean, the continuity of the self is a huge philosophical question.

[21:48] Rory: Yeah, some people really relate to who they were in childhood, for example, and I really don’t.

[21:59] Matt: Well, did you see that thing I sent you on instagram today?

[22:02] Rory: No.

[22:04] Matt: That was like she remembers as a kid crying and feeling like an unknown force comfort her and then realized later in life that it was actually her on ayahuasca, living that moment, like her ayahuasca self floated into that memory and comforted her child. Self realizes that that unseen force was actually her. It’s like Harry Potter. It’s like the patronus scene in Harry Potter.

[22:39] Rory: I don’t know Harry Potter.

[22:40] Matt: There’s, like a time loop, and harry is rescued by a mysterious figure on the other side of the lake, and he doesn’t know who it is. But then later, when he time travels, he realizes that it’s him. He did it. Oh, he saved. So now I don’t know if I believe her, but she seemed to think that there is some sort of continuity, connection of the self where that story lands us on, if yourself is the same person or not.

[23:16] Rory: Well, I don’t know. I think her point was that their time is an illusion.

[23:20] Matt: Time is an illusion.

[23:21] Rory: Now, personally, I think she took the ayahuasca and now is remembering the eight year old memory differently than how it really. But, you know, I’ve never done Ayahuasca, and I’m pretty confident I never will, so I can say that for myself now. Matt, when was the last time you wrote this letter to yourself? When will I be getting the update on myself? Last year.

[23:49] Matt: It usually comes. Actually, I don’t know. It always used to come in November, but then I slacked on it, so now I don’t know when it’s coming.

[24:00] Rory: Okay, I wonder what mine said last year.

[24:03] Matt: I mean, the last. Like, the last one I received or the one I’ll receive next.

[24:09] Rory: The last one you received.

[24:11] Matt: You want me to see?

[24:12] Rory: Yeah. Can you look it up?

[24:13] Matt: Yeah. Got them all archived. Of course.

[24:17] Rory: I forgot that you’re recording on the computer, like me. I was like, well, you don’t have your computer. The camera set up.

[24:25] Matt: Future self, future me. Is this the last one I have? Hold on. Future me. Let me log in. It’s like, will this website always exist? That’s another thing I wonder.

[24:39] Rory: I know, me, too. I was just thinking that I’m like, have they updated it since 2012?

[24:44] Matt: Having trouble finding it. But here’s an old one. Rory is not loving her job. She wants out, contemplating returning to Chicago.

[24:58] Rory: Dang, girl.

[25:00] Matt: How does that make you feel? Trapped in a time loop?

[25:05] Rory: Well, it makes me feel the same way that I feel about my journal, which is that’s not how I remember it. What matters more, the way I experience or the way I remember? For the person I am now, the way I remember the past is way more important than the way I experienced it. Maybe not. The body keeps the score, right?

[25:28] Matt: How can you not remember it that way? You’re always contemplating moving to Chicago, sometimes quite seriously. And you’ve often wanted out from your job. You don’t remember that?

[25:40] Rory: See, I don’t think of myself as often wanting out of my job. Think of myself as being mostly fine with my job and punctuated by periods of wanting to never work. But do you perceive otherwise?

[25:59] Matt: Well, past me thinks that about past you and present me thinks that about.

[26:03] Rory: See, I have a question, but do you think I complain about my job a lot?

[26:08] Matt: Yeah.

[26:09] Rory: No, really. Name one complaint.

[26:14] Matt: I’m not going to.

[26:17] Rory: Does that a question annoy you?

[26:20] Matt: No, I just don’t want to say it on air. But they don’t appreciate you. Oh, yeah, that realm.

[26:29] Rory: Yeah, well, I did get passed up for a promotion.

[26:33] Matt: Yeah, exactly.

[26:35] Rory: Well, I don’t like this conversation because I’m telling you, it feels so.

[26:41] Matt: Oh, and I attached a picture to this last one. Hello, skinderella.

[26:47] Rory: Wait, have you not written one since?

[26:49] Matt: Confused. I’m confused about it. Like I don’t know where my other ones.

[26:55] Rory: Hmm. Wow. Matt, I don’t like this conversation. And do you? Why? Because it is exactly what I hate about life. My reality, your reality, my past reality, my current reality. Not all matching up perfectly. Yeah, it’s confusing and deeply troubling to me.

[27:17] Matt: Okay, here’s a letter from 2016. Let’s see. No mention of you.

[27:23] Rory: Really interesting. Okay.

[27:26] Matt: I don’t think I had found that format yet.

[27:29] Rory: What did you say about yourself, though?

[27:31] Matt: Okay, let’s see. Past me was curious if I quit smoking. I haven’t, but I’m trying. But aren’t I always trying? I shudder to think that. I haven’t quit in a year from now.

[27:47] Rory: But you from five years from now, that’s pretty.

[27:51] Matt: Okay, enough of that. By the time you read this, it’s too late to do anything about those things. So relax. You have another year, maybe. Great for you. If so, congrats to us then. I talk about some guys I’m seeing. Someone from. A boy I was seeing from Berlin who was coming to visit, and a guy at the coffee shop that I had a crush on. So not really boys I’m seeing, but money. Have no money. And I feel ****** about it.

[28:21] Rory: See, now you don’t feel ****** about it.

[28:23] Matt: Now I’ve accepted it.

[28:25] Rory: Things change.

[28:27] Matt: It’s been a lonely time. Miranda, Goni, Jesse gone. I have some new friendships. Kim Joav, assaf noy. But I just don’t know if these people will stay in my life. They all want to move to ******* Berlin.

[28:44] Rory: Wow.

[28:45] Matt: Almost done with micro essays. I wonder how that sounds to you.

[28:49] Rory: That became a book.

[28:51] Matt: Yeah.

[28:52] Rory: See, this is nice. I don’t know. Should I write this? I feel like I can’t handle a letter like this.

[28:57] Matt: It’s delightful.

[28:59] Rory: It’s delightful. Maybe I’ll do it for the real New Year’s in March, before we adopted the gregorian calendar.

[29:07] Matt: Oh, yeah. Wait, did you send me a reel about that, or did I just see one?

[29:10] Rory: I think either we saw the same one or you sent me one. Or I sent you one.

[29:15] Matt: Not the New Year’s. Don’t make a resolution. The New Year’s is with aries or whatever.

[29:21] Rory: Yeah, but where would we be to circle back on journaling without the great journals of the past? They’re incredibly informative about what time was like back then. And by back then, I mean any other time but now. Obviously, the hubris that a journal like our journals would be important.

[29:42] Matt: Oh, yes. Well, I have to mention my junior high journal, which I titled A Chrysalis made of mirrors.

[29:53] Rory: I’ve heard worse. I’ve heard worse, for sure. It’s evocative.

[29:57] Matt: It’s actually called growing up gay. Volume one. A chrysalis made of mirrors.

[30:03] Rory: Oh, my God. You were so comfortable being gay in middle school.

[30:07] Matt: No, it was detailing the painful coming out story. Do you know what it’s like to come out as gay to your ultra liberal democratic parents in a wealthy suburb in Massachusetts?

[30:20] Rory: The question I’m wondering is, when did you know you were gay?

[30:23] Matt: When did I know?

[30:24] Rory: Yeah.

[30:25] Matt: Well, that’s also attested to in a journal.

[30:30] Rory: A Chrysalis full of mirrors?

[30:32] Matt: Where? No, in my childhood journal, dear angel, one of its latter day entries, when I was a bit older, that one starts out very young, like eight, and goes to, like, twelve. I don’t know what year it was. I need to find out. But it’s Christmas Eve. I’m in bed. I should be dreaming of.

[31:01] Rory: Sugar plums.

[31:02] Matt: Sugar plums, sugar plums and Santa Claus. But I’m in bed thinking about how I’m gay. And then the next four entries are ripped. So, like, I self censored. I tore out all the gay things, but forgot, but missed one. Stupidly but thankfully.

[31:27] Rory: Oh, my gosh, the anguish. I feel so bad for you. That must have been such a concern.

[31:32] Matt: Yeah. That journal, though, is very funny. When I read those young entries, oh, how I law the dear angel entries. The drawings of my brother yelling at me.

[31:52] Rory: Dude, siblings really impact your life when you’re little. It’s like. That’s like your ultimate foe.

[32:01] Matt: Yeah, you have a foe. You have a built in. And so there’s a long drive. Like, he would be mean to me and hit me, and then I’d be like, furiously journaling in the seat next to him about him, like, because it was an act of revenge. Journaling.

[32:23] Rory: Yes, absolutely.

[32:24] Matt: Was an act of revenge.

[32:26] Rory: Yeah, definitely. Now, I keep what’s known as a commonplace book. I think I’ve talked about this on the podcast, but it’s basically just like poems or excerpts from things I’ve read before in a little moleskin, whatever. And I think you said that you read an article about it in the New York Times, and the New York Times said it’s a journal that isn’t embarrassing when you read it back. Yeah, but I disagree. Some of the poems I put in there when I was a child, or not a child when I was younger. Not a child, an adult. That’s worse. That’s worse. Embarrassed me than I thought that they were profound or worthy of the commonplace book.

[33:10] Matt: Yeah, sure. Anyone who thinks that a commonplace book can’t embarrass you hasn’t been embarrassed by their own underlinings.

[33:19] Rory: Yes.

[33:21] Matt: Interesting why we’re so ashamed that our sensibilities change.

[33:27] Rory: I guess it’s like there’s just no way for your current self. Is there any way for your current self to look back on the past self and think that they were intelligent, capable, wise?

[33:43] Matt: I think in a lot of ways, I think my past self was a lot more wise than my current self.

[33:50] Rory: I don’t know, maybe if you had a diary from that time. That’s the shocker right there to me, when I’m like, oh, when I was younger and I had more confidence, I was more self assured about things. Let’s say I look back and I’m like, you idiot. You have no reason to feel that way.

[34:12] Matt: Yeah, I feel like my mental health has more moving parts now.

[34:22] Rory: Absolutely. But that’s what I mean. Like, when I look at myself at 20 and I’m like, oh, my God, the bottom is going to fall out, girl. It all figured out. I guess maybe I did. I definitely didn’t. I don’t know why I even said that. Did not. Still don’t. I just know that when I’m 60, I’m going to be like, what an idiot. Like, oh, my God, these podcasts are like journals. We share so much of what we think, I’m never going to be able to relisten to them.

[34:55] Matt: You’re right. And that’s another reason why I really don’t need to keep a journal. I’m a writer. I’m constantly writing my life and my thoughts have so many ways of coming back to haunt me already.

[35:14] Rory: God, I just got filled with anxiety thinking about how stupid I’m going to sound to myself in 20 years.

[35:21] Matt: You know what’s going to be interesting? I wrote about this in my journal the other day. Okay, so do you know what Gobekli Tepe is?

[35:31] Rory: No.

[35:31] Matt: It’s like a really famous archaeological site in Turkey. And people are like, okay, these animals depicted on it, we think that the significant, they have such scant details, and they have to build out a picture of a society based on really scant details. I think these had religious purposes. Well, maybe they didn’t. Maybe it was about local heroes, or maybe it was about. Who knows? So the historian of the future is going to have a lot of material.

[36:08] Rory: Yes, you’re so right.

[36:11] Matt: Or her problem, or their problem will be figuring out how to, instead of figuring out how to build a story out from scant details, how to sketch a story when there’s so many. Like, imagine a historian trying to write about anything that’s going on in the news today when you have these vast oceans of contradicting accounts, rivers of fake news, that whether or not it’s fake, might be lost to time. It’s just going to be very hard, all these.

[36:50] Rory: Can anything be lost to time nowadays? I don’t know. Well, definitely misinterpreted. What a keen observation. And it makes me think about, I don’t know, when we read people’s journals or letters, are we really considering that they’re just the musings of a bunch of idiots? Or we take them as.

[37:18] Matt: We. We take them as pretty authoritative in many cases. We’re not just like, oh, Mary Todd Lincoln’s ramble. Well, maybe with. But. So Abe Lincoln sends letters during his life to all these different people, and then they all save them, and then after he dies, they give them to someone.

[37:42] Rory: Yeah, I mean, come about. Well, essentially, I guess. I guess there’s a letter collector, like the way that you said that there’s one person who collects the letters of great people during a time period. Like when you said there was someone in Italy whose job it was to count the Jews.

[38:01] Matt: Oh, yeah, the chief jewish tomographer.

[38:11] Rory: It’s interesting now, because we don’t write letters, and probably people journal way less than do they probably journal less than they ever did. And yet there’s so much more information about us out in the world.

[38:23] Matt: I think probably people journal more.

[38:26] Rory: You think so?

[38:27] Matt: Yeah, just because there’s more people.

[38:30] Rory: Oh, there’s more people. Yeah, I guess you’re right. And it is like a tenet of the new age spiritual movement, not new age spiritual movement. But every spiritual practice now has co opted the idea of journaling as important.

[38:45] Matt: Well, I find it so amazing. I skipped the last two days and I felt the build up of mental plaque. And I almost can’t overstate how healthy this habit has been for me. And I don’t enjoy doing it.

[39:12] Rory: Oh, yes. So it’s like working out chore in.

[39:17] Matt: The morning, but I do it because it has profoundly improved my life.

[39:25] Rory: God, you’re making me want to do it again. I have to get a little mini shredder for my house, though, so I can shred them immediately.

[39:31] Matt: I had a period where I was doing in a spiral bound notebook, and I would tear them out and shred it myself and do sort of a practical magic ritual with it. May these wishes be fulfilled. May these fears be soothed. May these dreads not come to pass. May these gratitudes be appreciated, or, like, may these blessings be appreciated.

[40:00] Rory: Did you write that little incantation yourself?

[40:03] Matt: No. I’d like say that to myself as I shredded it because.

[40:07] Rory: But did you make it up yourself?

[40:09] Matt: Yes.

[40:10] Rory: Oh, my God. I’m always amazed with you.

[40:15] Matt: Why?

[40:15] Rory: You like something new. Of course. Learn something new about your best friend every day.

[40:21] Matt: That’s why you got to talk every day.

[40:23] Rory: You have to talk every day. Five times a day. Why would I need a journal to process anything. Why do you need a journal to process anything?

[40:33] Matt: I know.

[40:34] Rory: Could you be expressing yourself more?

[40:37] Matt: This one thing in my overly verbose, overly articulated life, is that like a.

[40:42] Rory: Dawson’s Creek line, it’s a line from something. Well, maybe I’ll start my morning pages again. You never know.

[40:51] Matt: And self shred.

[40:53] Rory: And self shred, of course. Absolutely. I would also write my morning pages very allegedly. One, because you’re just going, right, like, you’re not stopping or thinking. And so I just never worried about my handwriting because I knew I was never going to come back to read it. And two, as a disguise in case someone found it.

[41:16] Matt: Yeah.

[41:17] Rory: I’m a grown woman and I’m scared of someone reading my diary.

[41:20] Matt: You need a diary with a lock on it. Look at this gibberish.

[41:25] Rory: Oh, actually it looks kind of nice.

[41:28] Matt: Oh, it looks nice because I write incursive and it kind of, like, looks historic.

[41:35] Rory: Can I tell you a fun fact?

[41:38] Matt: Yeah.

[41:39] Rory: I read an article about how computers of the typewriter didn’t end cursive writing. It was the Ballpoint pen.

[41:49] Matt: Why is that?

[41:50] Rory: Because it’s hard to write cursive with a ballpoint pen. Is it yeah, it’s much easier with ink. You have to connect your letters with ink, almost. You can’t stop them. That’s why most people write like me. Most people write sort of, like, in a weird mix of cursive and block lettering.

[42:10] Matt: That’s what I usually. The first letter I don’t connect of the capital.

[42:17] Rory: Right.

[42:18] Matt: I was actually thinking, like, and I know this sounds silly, but I was like, some of these letters I’m doing in cursive are not real cursive. I was like, should, like, relearn cursive on YouTube. But what’s the point?

[42:31] Rory: Do you need to relearn it, or do you just need to start using it?

[42:35] Matt: I think I need to relearn it like Z’s. Rudo. Remember that from Billy Madison? No, he can’t do curse of Z’s.

[42:52] Rory: Oh, yeah, they’re hard. Okay, so I have to write, like, notes sometimes for work. And I have the worst, ugliest handwriting, and I was thinking the same thing. I was like, can I take a handwriting class? Should I get some control paper? Is this, like, skill you can cultivate later in life?

[43:16] Matt: Yeah, I suppose you can. But the question becomes, really, why? Like, oh, my God. Shorthand. Wouldn’t you like to learn that?

[43:27] Rory: I guess, but again, why am I taking furious notes?

[43:32] Matt: You’re seeing the shorthand dictionary?

[43:35] Rory: Yes.

[43:36] Matt: It’s insane.

[43:39] Rory: I would have flunked out of journalism school. Or secretary school. Sorry.

[43:46] Matt: A billion little symbols that each look essentially exactly the same, and they each mean a different word. It’s like a whole other language.

[43:55] Rory: I know. It’s crazy.

[43:56] Matt: It’s truly insane. But that would be a really private diary.

[44:04] Rory: Oh, yes, it would. Can you use flowery shorthand, or is the language of shorthand pretty terse? Yeah.

[44:15] Matt: It needs to be able to capture anything that’s said.

[44:18] Rory: Like the word flowery.

[44:20] Matt: Yeah. Like, is there a shorthand word for chrysalis?

[44:24] Rory: Full of mirrors. Could you write that in shorthand?

[44:28] Matt: You just need to write, Chris is Liz and, like, hope that your future self remembers what you were going for.

[44:43] Rory: Yeah. Sometimes I use shorthand BC because out w slant. With.

[44:54] Matt: With. Yeah.

[44:57] Rory: Okay, so what do we think? Journaling? How to be.

[44:59] Matt: I started this episode saying no, but I’m now realizing how wonderful different forms of journaling have been for me, from morning pages to letters to my future self. I don’t think the daily. Here’s what I did today is really it for. That’s so. That’s the. The Google image search of a journal. A journal can be so much more. There’s so many ways to journal. So I’m saying, yeah, it’s how to be.

[45:32] Rory: Through this episode, I’ve realized I have a phobia of the disjointed memory of who I was in the past and the reality of who I was in the past. And you know what that is? It’s ego. It’s arrogance. I want to have this idea of myself because I can kind of be. I’m a little bit of a perfectionist of always being perfect and righteous and intelligent and witty, but that isn’t the reality. And who cares?

[46:09] Matt: Yeah, who cares?

[46:10] Rory: But I do, actually, because I’m saying, who cares? But it’s me, actually. And I do not look forward to listening to these episodes ever again. And now I want to apologize to all our listeners for even listening to me.

[46:31] Matt: Johnny Depp never watches his movies. And you and me, we love Johnny Depp.

[46:38] Rory: It’s hard to choose a favorite movie from Johnny Depp’s Uvra, but more just.

[46:44] Matt: As a man, we both really strive to emulate his example in the world.

[46:50] Rory: Absolutely. He’s. What a guy. What a rugged know. What a cool guy.

[46:56] Matt: Cool guy.

[46:58] Rory: Well, actually, though, thank you all for listening. And please remember to, like, share, subscribe, and why don’t you leave a five star review?

[47:07] Matt: Leave a five star review. Write about us in your journal.

[47:11] Rory: Oh, yeah. Dear diary, today, what did you say?

[47:16] Matt: Tell all your future selves about us.

[47:19] Rory: What a great plan if we can get the next five versions of you to listen to this podcast.

[47:26] Matt: Yeah.

[47:29] Rory: All right. Bye, Matt. Bye.