Anyone here keep a journal/diary?

Well, I tend to dwell somewhere between the psychological model of, say, a Carl Jung or Joseph Campbell, and the spirit model of a Crowley, but I'm also fond of chaos magick. Regardless, it all gets interpreted through a philosophical lens because I'm like that.

That's pretty interesting, but I can't say I know very much about the topic. What does that entail practically? And what's the philosophical basis for it (not meant to imply a critique; I'm genuinely interested in what a philosophically-minded person has to say on the topic)?

Well, for instance I've heavily incorporated the mystical aspects of stoicism (as well as the techniques of stoicism) into my personal toolkit. Most magical perspectives have the following properties:

* They're pantheistic, in the sense they believe in a God/Baphomet/Pan who is the substance of the universe
* They're partially solipsistic or intersubjective, in that they believe reality can be influenced by how an individual perceives reality and interacts with it while perceiving it in this mode
* They're pragmatic: Gods are used as psychological principles, as are demons, to achieve certain inner outcomes. 90% of magick is psychology, and the rest isn't even necessarily not psychology, it's just psychology overlapping with the actual world, from whence all occult effects are supposedly derived.

I use sigils sometimes, and play around with other stuff, but I think basically what I do is use philosophy in a magical way; ie, in a pragmatic way, aimed at self-improvement and self-discipline. My magical and philosophical readings inform each other.

Advanced technology.

Wow, thanks for the long reply. Pretty detailed. So, it's magic in the sense of tapping into a deeply rooted pagan (or at least pre-Christian) system of symbols? That makes a lot of sense actually. You're combination of these much older system of belief with modern psychological principles is pretty fascinating. How common is that amongst magic-practitioners?

It's approximately universal. The only people that don't do it are, say, tribal shamans, and people with very narrow or shallow investment in it (ie, people who just use sigils and do nothing else, including think; people who buy premade magical remedies but nothing else, etc.). There are potentially groups who go narrow but deep in another area and thus avoid it, but I don't know enough about magical orders to give you a definitive answer there. But it's intrinsic to the Golden Dawn and OTO, so you can expect almost all western magick to feature it. Note, however, that the psychology of making things work often required not admitting that what is happening is psychology!

Yeah, I carry a journal around with me. If I hear something cool I'll write it down. If I come up with a joke or something, I'll write that down too. It's a mix of to-do lists, neat things I see, and general thoughts.

I keep some of what I post on Veeky Forums in a folder called diary. They're meant to tell the future what ideas, what memories, what hopes, what fears, what interests one nobody from the 21st century had.

I've kept a diary in the past when travelling. It's often been quite cathartic. I would like to continue with it for that reason, as well as writing practice, but it's hard to find the time of day.

I've kept a daily journal while doing my 12 months of military service.It helped me keep my sanity while being cut off from everyone outside of camp.

I try to write down my dreams as soon as I wake up.

My diary ain't about me pouring my heart out about how hard life is or anything, it's usually hard cold facts (diner, parties...) followed by day-to-day observations and descriptions of human behaviours I witness in my friends or lovers.

I'm usually always 6 months behind at a time, and write the last 6 months in one week-end in a writing fury.

I don't know if it's of any help in writing fiction though. Thoughts?

I do, and I highly recommend it. Everyone should read it.

Nicely put user! I think about future descendants as well... but who am I kidding, I've got no gf at the moment, so I might just write for the wind to pick up the ashes. At least it's fun.

Interesting. Are you Alan Moore?

I am opposed to personal record keeping because I believe it interferes with the proper way of disposing of superfluous memories of the brain.

Our minds are good curators, repeatedly confronting it with things it has tried to forget is traumatic.

That's why I keep no pictures, videos or text whatsoever.

I tried to keep one day by day and couldn't. I write mental diaries as the day goes on so by the time it gets to night I feel like I ahv enothing to write down.
There was one month were I wrote every single day, but it was because it was a stoic diary.
For the time I keep a small notebook where I write sometimes.

No, I have a limited lifespan so why would I want to spend half of it documenting the other half(most likely with many grammatical errors) I would recommend starting an idea book, I have concepts for stories that I will most likely never use but I noticed that I forgot some of the good ideas I had 2-3 years ago so maybe write them down so you will have ideas to use when you retire and have time to write full time.
>dream journal
keep it, if you have trippy dreams and need them for your art.I have only had 5 worth of any note.

I only understand sympathetic magic, how hard is yours?

Does future you cringe at the writings?Does he edit them?

>It helped me keep my sanity while being cut off from everyone outside of camp.
Don't you skype?Should have played cod and called everyone faggots

>I don't know if it's of any help in writing fiction though. Thoughts?
No!? it may even ruin your style and make your writing dry and clinical

my diary is non existent desu

I have a document that I put all my writing in, some of which is essentially a journal. I don't recommend it is disturbing and embarrassing

Yeah I kept a diary during the most boring year of my life. Wrote in it every day. The next year, a girl entered my life and created so much chaos that I emerged from that year like a soldier from war, looking five years older. No diary.

Actually, I was so sure this would happen, but the reverse turned out to be true for me: I would hate what I was writing while I was writing it, but when I revisited the entry a few days later, I would like it.

I don't get why I would have one.

It would be littered with the rantings of a depressed and suicidal idiot anyway, and it's not like I want to read that when I have those thoughts in my head 24/7.

I started one about a year and a half ago with the purpose of getting an idea of how I change as a person with time
It's quite neat to be able to check out what you thought in the past and your reasons for thinking that
That said; I have difficulty expressing myself (even TO myself), so my diary doesn't reflect myself as much as I would like it to

Of course, I also have that tiny speck of hope that someone, sometime after I'm gone, will read it

I always want to edit old writings, but so far I have resisted the temptation to edit the ones in my diary.

As for cringing, only one of my entries is old enough to make me want to shoot myself when I read it. I think the rest read well. See pic related, but I do whine about food in some of the others, which is annoying to read, and many of the earlier entries are boring to read, because I wrote those with nothing in my head while staring at a blank Word document.

On the other hand, the stuff I post on Veeky Forums is usually prompted by a post like yours or the thread in general, which results in writing that is a lot more interesting for me to read later. When I realized that is when I turned my diary into a selection of posts I make here.

A nice bonus from that is that I get tantalizing titles for each entry, because it really sucks to try to choose an entry to revisit when all I have are dates for titles. Now I can scan the titles and be like "Huh, I wonder what I had to say about Bill Walton. *Click.*"

No I am not Alan Moore.

Sigils are super easy. I've tried more complex stuff like the greater summoning ritual of the pentagram and that's much more complex but I haven't been able to make it work, whereas I'm starting to get the knack for sigils.

i do dream journals

but even my lucid dreaming turns sour. i end up fucking my mom and wake up miserable.

and the drinking and midnight snacks i have end up giving me nightmares, so i try not to do them any more

I like your text on the right desu.

Who is Dotty, man?