Hmm. Never used this before.

Monday, April 20, 2009

I am no stranger to the diary medium, mind you. A single trip to a bookstore would send both my adolescent and adult self straight to the GIFTS AND JOURNALS section to peruse the freshly-organized, fresh-smelling displays of blank books. Looking back, I suppose the particular journal I had picked out at the time said a great deal about who I was (or hoping to be) at the moment. A journal with a little lock? Well, I must have been twelve. My thoughts were too secret and too special to be shared with the world. A thick, leather-bound tome with parchment-colored pages? Most likely fourteen. History preoccupied my interest at this time—I suppose I fancied that whatever I wrote would be published in some future historical journal, about the misanthropic nature of teenagers in the new millennium. Plain and black? Sixteen: I would adorn the cover myself with the dark and grotesque chalk-pen illustrations of my suburban nightmare. A soft green with a simple design of flowers or birds? Eighteen. Little poems and contemporary musings will have filled those pages—maybe quotes or pictures of painted masterpieces torn from magazines and newspapers. And now? I have stopped kidding myself; I hate writing by hand. My laziness has finally come out victorious in its outstanding battle with my innate romanticism.
So then what the hell is this?
I wish I knew, but I do not. I really ought to be writing a research paper on the clash of modern individualism and traditional mass-identity in the Meiji novel, but I am not. A quick look through any of the dozens of quickly-abandoned journals buried amongst the textbooks and paperbacks of my bookshelf would be enough to tell you that I have had my own battles with individualism. Is it more important to be accepted, or to be unique? What conclusion have I come to? I am not so sure I have come to one yet. If I manage, I will let you know.