Public vs. Private Journals

[grovyle]

I'm on my second private, physical journal right now! I do like them a whole lot, and before this I'd never completed a notebook, not even for school lol, but my living situation has changed quite a bit and now it's a constant worry that someone will open it and read it when I don't want to  had a really close friend just open it and start flipping pages a few months back and I still haven't gotten over how angry that made me. There's a mix of everything there, from scrapbook-like pages, to quotes, to personal entries. Most of it is written in something other than my native language, but the most personal ones I do write on my native language.

I've had public journals before, but I didn't quite end up feeling comfortable with them. Had one on blogger like a decade ago and if my friends had been normal about it at the time, it would've been fine, but I would write about something in an abstract way and they would start pestering me about what that meant instead of just reading it. I guess that was a friend problem, more than a journal problem hahaha

And then I kinda used twitter like one for many years, as in every thought that I had, I HAD to spill on twitter. That ended up being really unhealthy for me, and many people thought they knew me just because of what I had tweeted, but I didn't feel like they really did so maybe what I wrote didn't come across in the right way. Luckily I got out of there.

Moving forward I think I'll stick to physical, private journals. I do see them as a history artifacts for whoever to find whenever I'm not here anymore (here my country? here this house? here this life? i don't really know), and digital journals would make me scared to lose everything if anything were to happen to them, or my devices, or my passwords.

[boreal_cryptid]

i have both, because for me it's a balance between raw reflection and expression.

i have two private journals: the first one is physical. i write whenever i have the opportunity: at home, sitting on the bench while i'm chilling outside, etc. i guess you can call it a diary too? well, i write in this diary everything i need, but it's not always possible: sometimes it's not reasonable because i don't have the time or the space to do it.

i have 4 diaries from different years, and it's like a treasure for me  unfortunately, i forgot to take one of my oldest diaries (2016-2018) when i left home, and i can't access it anymore!    but at least it's safe with my father, and i trust him with it.

the second private one is a digital journal - it's always available and i can quickly capture my thoughts there. i have notes app as well, but having a webpage makes it easier to access it from anywhere (while i have internet access, of course...) i know about notes app with sync between pc/mobile/web, but they are so fucking slow. and what i mean by slow is: every second something loads when i need to quickly capture my thoughts - feels like i'm going to explode.

instead, i use thoughts.page for that, because coding to catch my thoughts is a horrible option, also because of the slow input. and if it's private - i absolutely don't want ANY social options.
even bearblog/smolpub/pika are too much - they're good, but for my brain? for a real raw journal? too complex. they look more like something for a public "blog" than a journal. yeah, even if i don't share with anyone and hide the upvote button from bearblog. still. not for this.

as for the public one... i'm still not sure. i've tried to post some stuff i've already written, so it would be like a collection of existing thoughts. like a conclusion of sorts. but every time i feel too vulnerable (hello, paranoid ideation), i end up hiding everything after a while. i can only write about not-too-personal things, so it doesn't look like a personal diary anymore, i guess? because it's not about my life, but about things i'm interested in: thoughts about games, mods, etc.

[sokil]

i keep a physical journal that i write in every now and then. most of the time i write in it is if i need a space to vent or write down a mess of jumbled thoughts that i need to work out to clear my mind. sometimes i'll write about fun experiences, too, like when i have a good time with a friend or see a cool concert. it's also kind of like a junk journal - i like to collect things like wrappers, labels from soda bottles, wrapping paper, and all sorts of other things and attach them to pages. there might sometimes be a "deeper" meaning to some items like part of a chopstick wrapper from a restaurant or a starbucks order sticker - these are all things from when i last saw my best friend. other times it's just stuff i thought looked cool. with my old journal, i also used to keep a lot of notes for projects or coursework, but i've decided that with this newer one i want to keep that to a minimum (i have my everything notebook, which has things ranging from old class notes to recipes to some video game tips/guides, and some project specific notebooks that i keep separately now in order to not overwhelm myself).

i've tried to use the new journal app that came with one of the newer ios updates - i think around ios 17? - for language learning but it didn't last very long. i might attempt this again, but i'm not sure if i want to pick up another physical book to use for this type of journaling or try the built-in app again. the prompts the app gives can be quite helpful for practicing as there's numerous to pick from, so maybe if i can get myself into the habit i'll start there then move over to a physical journal when i feel more confident.

And then I kinda used twitter like one for many years, as in every thought that I had, I HAD to spill on twitter. That ended up being really unhealthy for me, and many people thought they knew me just because of what I had tweeted, but I didn't feel like they really did so maybe what I wrote didn't come across in the right way. Luckily I got out of there.

i used to do this as well - more broadly, i honestly had a really bad twitter addiction - and i would just spend all day posting into the void. i'm glad i eventually got myself out of doing that because i was just setting myself up to spiral. at the time i was a teenager and thought it was the only sort of outlet i had since i was constantly miserable... it was incredibly unhealthy it made me realize that treating social media as a public journal was actually a pretty bad idea. in the future, if i ever take up a habit of public journaling again, i think i want it to focus on simpler things like the video game i've been playing or the treats i baked during the holiday season. maybe even share my opinions on some other stuff. everything doesn't have to be lighthearted all of the time, but i would definitely want to do my best to avoid falling back into bad habits.

[splashy]

public journals give me more of a sense of relief from my thoughts and emotions. but due to privacy concerns, the scope of what i will publish is pretty limited. so when i write a blog post with the intention of making it public, i have to be careful what i share to avoid getting doxed (or doxing myself by accident lol).
i don't have to worry about oversharing in a private journal, as it's made for me and me only. nobody else will see it (at least not if i secure said journal). that said, it's still nice to share your thoughts across the net, so that others can get insight into your personality and beliefs, and for others to be able to leave their thoughts on what you've said. (this is why i don't have a proper about me. just read my posts on forums and my website and you'll get a good enough idea of who i am and what i'm into.)