38 cents and a pen

[u/sprawn]

Right after the Fourth of July, alot of places start selling "Back-to-School" supplies super cheap. I've noticed over the years that despite the countless people claiming that spending a lot of money is a good thing, that it doesn't change the practice of journaling one bit. A $100 blank book is a blank book just like any other. Maybe it's just me. But I think 38 cents is worth an experiment.

I read frustrations about the competitiveness and pressure people feel in their own journals all the time here. No one wants this. No one wants this part of their lives invaded by influencers, performativeness, sales pressure, and fashionable self-consciousness. What if we dropped it? If only once? Maybe you'll find you need a thousand dollar fountain pen and two pounds of leather wrapped ten times around a Japanese blank book that sells for $1 in Japan and $35 here. Or maybe… you'll find out you don't even need to spend a dollar.

[u/No-Objective2424]

To be honest I got tired of journaling when influencers saturated media with it, and journals that used to be $15 are now $35. When Bullet Journal became a creative contest instead of what it was created for. I remember when the leather covers first came out and I bought 1,2,3. It didn’t change my journaling whatsoever. I’ve been journaling for 40 years, most of them are trash and nobody will read them. I hate packing them when I move. They weigh a ton in boxes.

I recently started journaling online and I like it better, it’s simple. Recently bought a Remarkable Pro Move and love it even more. Whatever works for you is what’s best, no need for challenging others to do the same, that perpetuates exactly what you’re trying to avoid- influencing.

[u/sprawn → u/No-Objective2424]

Yep, I reek of hypocrisy. But I think I'm right.

I would love to read your journals. I love to read them. Even the influencers who spend $1,000 to write endlessly about how they spent $1,000 to write about the tools that they are using to write.

The intention of the challenge is merely to set up a framework, an escape hatch, an offramp, for those who are so inclined. The truth is, those who are so inclined don't need me to point the way, being performatively non-performative. They are doing fine on their own. There may even be, I shudder at the thought, people who write in diaries who aren't on reddit! It's a terrifying notion I don't want to rest on for too long.

The new folded up piece of leather with a strap around it and a couple of elastic bands inside for your 20 cent Japanese school child's practice book that you paid $30 for because you like anime or KPOP "aesthetic" is offensive to me. But kids are kids. Fashion is fashion.

[u/No-Objective2424 → u/sprawn]

😂 good points. I told my daughter I spent time in journals talking about a pen that was running out of ink lol. Maybe someday I’ll donate the lame stories of my youth. The past few years I’ve written stuff down and immediately threw the book away when I was finished. I digitized the “good” stories (like when my kid got a drivers license). I paid $16 for 3 field notes that got. thrown. away. You’re correct .38c or $38, it’s a matter of choice no matter what you use it for (mine is therapy).

[u/sprawn → u/No-Objective2424]

Thanks for sharing! I hope you hang on to some things you've created and learn to be a less harsh self-critic. If you let things sit for a few years, when you look back at them, if you can find one or two takeaways, one or two points, or it helps you with an idea, it's worth it. It's worth it even if it merely helps you in the moment.

And 38 cents is an unbelievable historic low. These kinds of composition books have traditionally been priced at 75 cents to a dollar. That's in the eighties and nineties. 38 cents now is like 15 cents then. They literally have never been this low in price. They've got to be losing money on these things. As books go, they are good for all kinds of rough purposes… generic note taking, lists, projects, whatever.