I’m just going to keep journaling. Journaling with no specific outcome in mind other than to journal. Not trying to get any specific point across, but purely to follow where the writing leads. Because it feels good.
I’m building a networked diary app. For now, I’ll use the Feel Eternity name (my design studio) as its name. I get it’s a long app name. Maybe it’ll stay like that, maybe not. We’ll see.
I want to build a diary app because writing is lost art. Our consumption has moved to multimedia, and while there’s nothing wrong with that, it feels like we write way less now. I don’t know this for sure, I don’t have any statistic for it, but it sure feels like it. We used to write letters more often, some more heartfelt and filled with more substance, and not just on special occasions. There was something about pieces of prose encapsulated in moments of time and not these instantaneous fleeting pieces of ephemera lost in the ether, that felt powerful, beautiful, romantic. It’s not even about what’s written per se, but that effort was applied into the writing. There was some weight because of the tools involved: a piece of paper and a pen, or a typewriter taken out of its case, paper rolled in, and the writer started banging away. Even the idea of a blog post, which needed to live in a blog, that needed some thought before it was published. There is energy applied, mistakes were costly, (there’s no mere backspace on paper), which was a forcing function for words to be written first in thought before it was inked on paper.
I’m not necessarily nostalgic about not making mistakes per se. The backspace is a wonderful invention. I’ve already used it about 100 times as of writing this. But there is something interesting about “pieces of prose encapsulated in time.” It feels more of an art work precisely because there is energy and effort applied. There is thought and substance. On occasion, emotion is spilled onto the page: passion, excitement, sadness, love. There is rumination that resulted in this piece, where there’s bits of someone’s soul as part of it.
We do this less now. The heyday may have been in the time of blogs when anyone can write one. And there is a ritual associated with writing on a blank page then pressing “publish.” Sure, writing online may be easier now than ever with things like Medium and Substack, but this is more geared towards fully finished pieces, and each one revolves around a specific subject or topic. There is also Twitter (I refuse to call it by its new “name”), where the 140 characters, and eventually 260, has evolved into this global stream of consciousness. But it’s probably too fast for this diary concept I’m thinking of. The feed also starts to feel like a representation of reality when it’s just a cacophony of random thoughts from people you follow, with no rhyme, or reason, or rhythm, aside from what the Twitter algorithm is forcing upon you.
There needs to be a better alternative. “Need” sounds like a strong word, but having written on the web since the late 90s, I’ve tried all the tools, and I haven’t been satisfied with any. It feels like a good time to try.
I’m trying to write more but I don’t even know about what.
Maybe this is just a journal.
I’m not sure who’ll find this. I’m not sure if I’ll even make it public. But I just want a place I can be raw. Just write it like it is, which is my preferred choice of medium.
Writing is in my blood, it’s in my DNA, it’s a part of who I am. I’ve done it since I was a child. I just have love of words. Something about the written word that travels through time and space and is more transferrable and accessible.