Dear diary …
Another year, another diary …
In this weekend’s Observer” newspaper, there was an article about how and why various people keep diaries, since this is the time of year when many individuals first start writing a personal diary.
I can certainly identify with this. I’ve been keeping a diary since I was 13 and I’ve never missed a day. This means that I’ve now filled 45 diaries with daily entries totalling 16,437.
When one keeps a diary and reviews it from time to time, one is constantly reminded about how much one forgets and, even when one remembers, how much one revises and even reorders memories.
Some of my friends have joked that, since I’ve had this personal weblog, I don’t need to keep a diary because all my life is out there on the blog. But that’s not true.
I write a lot of personal material in my diary that never appears on this blog, while conversely I write on this blog about all sorts of subjects that I never mention in my diary. The two certainly intersect and complement one another but, believe me, they are different.
January 4th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
“I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.”
Gwendoline in The Importance of Being Ernest by Oscar Wilde.