A few days back I was talking to someone about my habit of maintaining a journal. The reaction I received wasn’t exactly expected. I was pleasantly surprised that some people actually believe that this whole journal thing may not be a great idea. Why? Because then you always have the option of living with the past. The question I was asked was rather simple, yet it took me a while to answer. The question was ‘why’. Why do I feel the need to maintain a journal? Do I read my old recordings? What is it that we get out of revisiting experiences? Learning from past mistakes? Reliving moments of joy?

For years I have been maintaining a journal almost on a daily basis. I started with my infantile impressions of the world, where I described my everyday affairs, tiffs with friends and so on. As my world view changed with time, the style of my journals changed simultaneously. Soon I found myself attempting to answer the cryptic questions that had formed in my mind. I found myself trying to break the various codes that had become a part of my life. Codes pertaining to my value systems, my ideologies, my experiences and the intense relationship each one of these share with the other. It is not that I found answers to all my questions during the exercise. But I always found some direction.

I write because the thoughts inside my head get an outlet, and hence a direction. The thoughts, once put into paper, tend to take a definitive shape, a perspective. It’s not meant to be looked in hindsight. It is supposed to give you future direction, a plan of action.