Something’s different out there. I can feel it in the zeitgeist. Maybe it’s the rebel in me, but I’m going analog about a lot of things lately. Suddenly my screen time has been dropping. I’m drawn to things from my past. Real books. Home cooked meals. Doodling. Porch sitting. Landlines and answering machines. Reading poetry and history. Disappearing into some juicy romance novel. Learning to draw, or knit, working on puzzles. Playing an instrument. Checking out library books. Being idle, being alone….with my thoughts.

Something has to give. Frankly, I don’t think we can go on like this much longer. Aren’t we all just so sick of scrolling anyway? Aren’t we fed up with all the trolling we see on a daily basis? Aren’t the tech billionaires and so-called movers & shakers out there (who want us to believe they are controlling everything, determining our algorithm and, thus, our lives) just plain tiresome and boring, the kind of NPC you’d stay as far away from in any party? Why society ever thought a bunch of computer nerds (with no friends, or social skills) could write code that would somehow lead all of us to have jam packed, friendship-filled lives is beyond me. The truth is we are all probably a whole lot lonelier than ever before, not to mention socially anxious. I know I am.

Personally, I think the effect of screens has made the world a ruder place too. They just emphasize the haves and have-nots, the beautiful and the ugly, the elites and the downtrodden. We are divided into “us and them,” the Hatfields and McCoys, the Montagues and Capulets. I don’t think I’m imagining this, that people are just crueler too, more apt to “go off” on other people, more envious and, at the same time, filled with self-loathing. What’s inside a person doesn’t seem to be valued anymore. Looks appear to be everything. The perfect body, the perfect face. That’s what matters. Not the content of your character, not a great sense of humor, or a good aura that draws people to you.

So I’ve decided to return to journaling. Oh, I’ve done it here and there throughout the years, but I gave up consistent journaling years ago, sometime in my twenties. Putting down my deepest emotions, my foibles, seemed…well…embarrassing. And, what if someone finds them after I’m gone. I’ve sent boxes of journals into the trash heap in a very physical manifestation of the delete key on a keyboard, or backspace frenzy. If I wipe it out, it didn’t happen, right? But don’t I love reading my Grandfathers’ correspondences? Don’t I love seeing my Mom’s messy handwritten recipes? If we live our lives totally with the thought of not leaving a bunch of junk for our kids to go through when we are dead, I mean…they might appreciate it, or they might just throw it out and that’s okay too, but why cancel out the benefits of journaling, just to cast aside our humanity hidden?

Memory

I recently started to think about memory and cognitive decline. (I’ve cared for two family members with cognitive decline, so it’s something I think about a lot). My question: Every time you remember something, doesn’t it get farther away from the truth of what was, altered by the person you are today? The less we reflect or know the person we once were, do we lose pieces of ourselves, become just an acquaintance in our own lives?

Why do memories fade anyway, even the good ones that we do our best to try to hold onto? Well, there’s a “Decay Theory” that says neural connections weaken over time. If we don’t go back and revisit memories pretty frequently, they are lost to us. Another problem might be what’s called an “Encoding Failure,” a situation where short term memory stuff never makes it into long term, so away it goes! Every student knows what that feels like, while taking a test. Then there’s “Retrieval Failure,” the memory is still there in the brain, (we know that actor’s name, it’s on the tip of our tongue) but we can’t get to it. I feel that way about a lot of my Mother’s stories she told me a million times, that I wish I’d written down and just have a vague grasp of them now.

Brain researchers say that our brains don’t like to experience sensory overload. They describe a problem of interference (proactive and reactive) meaning old memories block new ones and new memories push out the old. https://www.simplypsychology.org/proactive-and-retroactive-interference.html. Maybe this is why an old friend may not have the bandwidth to reminisce and make time for another old friend, if his or her new friends are claiming their attention currently.

So,Why Journaling?

There are many benefits to journal. One is Metacognition: “Metacognition is the awareness, analysis, and regulation of one’s own thinking and learning processes, often summarized simply as ‘thinking about thinking’. ” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/metacognition. Journaling helps you to make the switch to being in your emotions, to observing your emotions.

Journaling helps the mind to deal with cognitive load. In other words, you have a lot of stuff to think about and it’s pretty overwhelming, sort of like having a lot of tabs open on your computer. This overloads the computers memory and slows things down, causes errors. Journaling acts as an external hard drive and tells your brain the information is safely stored, which reduces stress levels.

Journaling bridges the gap to your self-conscious. Bringing self-conscious motivations to the conscious mind can help you to direct your life and make real, lasting change.

Journaling documents who we are now, who we were then and so journaling acts a bit as a time machine. It can really help you to track your progress and growth. This helps you to have greater belief in yourself and how you handle life.

Journaling can help determine your future. If you want a certain outcome in your future, you need to take certain actions, which are determined by certain decisions you make. Life events lead to feelings, which lead to a cascade of decision-making, actions and outcomes. It’s no small thing to realize that journaling has the possibility of actually changing your life, simple by writing down your thoughts and feelings.

So, I’m closing the open tabs in my mind and picking up a pen once again. In a world that wants us to outsource our attention to algorithms and look for validation in a stream of endless scrolling, keeping a journal is a quiet, radical act. It’s an investment in me, a way to anchor my shifting memories, and an external hard drive for a brain that’s simply tired of the noise.

Maybe my kid will throw these notebooks away when I’m gone, or maybe she’ll hold onto them to catch a glimpse of who I really was beneath the digital dust. But right now, I’m not just writing for the future—I’m writing to stay anchored in the present. I’m choosing to step away from the screen, more and more these days, and face my own thoughts on paper. Maybe getting older is finally the time in your life to refocus on yourself, your wants, your needs. It’s a place one can bloom again, instead of withering away in front of a screen, like a vegetable.

What about you? Are you ready to close a few digital tabs, put down the phone, and see what happens when you finally introduce yourself back to you? Do you think we can get away from the little light up box in our pocket and learn how to live again, lose ourselves in bookstores for hours browsing volumes on rainy days, only to look up and see it’s dark outside and realize we’re famished? Something tells me, the more we do that, the more we will connect with other people too, over wine and coffee and talk and talk, until we look at the clock and realize, “Oh my! It’s bedtime,” and then try to figure out how to say goodbye until next time. What do you think? Could a return to journaling be the start of a beautiful relationship?

– Ms. Sassy Pants