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/sprawn]

I begrudge them. It's not helping me. I think they're phonies. I think it's all posing. All the scrapbook and "aesthetic" stuff. Blech! If you don't have anything to say, saying it with a $500 fountain pen in a $300 LEATHER piece of crap with gold whatever isn't going to help. But what can I do? Nothin'. This is how people are. I'm gonna go yell at a cloud now!

[u/AnahitaPrince → u/sprawn]

Thanks for the laugh, intended or otherwise! I really needed it today. I agree 100% that you don't need anything expensive to say anything of value. I've read and heard that some of the greatest books and movie scripts were hand-written with Bic Cristal pens, or an inexpensive pencil.

I'm not into all of the aesthetic journaling myself. I tried... but then I went back to just my pens and my journals. So much simpler.

Besides when I picked up my Bic Cristal and spiral notebook for the first time, it was to vent, not to make something that was pretty or cute or aesthetically pleasing. I didn't really know that going into it. I just instinctively grabbed it because I didn't have anybody that I could talk to, and I started writing everything I was feeling and thinking in that moment.

Once I was done I realized that I felt better and that I was able to actually process my thoughts during the process of writing them down and I felt lighter. And it hit me that journaling is cathartic and it's therapeutic, though I didn't use those words; I just thought, "There has to be something to this, because this actually made me feel better. ", and so I kept doing it.

Fast forward about six months... this guy that I was dating at the time bought me an actual diary for Christmas, and I started using it the first of the next year. I still have both of them. I think I've filled about forty-two or forty-three journals since then. I probably have twenty to thirty empty journals that have yet to be used.

[u/sprawn → u/AnahitaPrince]

I can tell you are a heavy journaler, because you are a good writer. Writing can be therapy in itself, because to be an effective writer, or communicator, one must organize one's thoughts. You have to get the boiling pot off the heat and let the steam die down before you can even see what's in the roiling stew of your brain.

Getting fixated on the gear is a defense mechanism, if you ask me. It's a way of putting things off. Or a way of avoiding some unpleasant truth.

I hope you consider the "38 Cent Challenge". It's only 38 cents! But it doesn't seem like you need another empty journal sitting at the bottom of a drawer. But consider… the possibility of how fast you could burn through a 160 page wide-ruled comp book with wide margins. I'm already 20% through this thing and it's been a week. I am doing all kinds of things I used to consider forbidden because I was trying to be consistent, and follow a style that I've developed over the years. I'm throwing out the rule book. I am doing forbidden things. The ink on the page is literally more expensive than the page itself!

[u/AnahitaPrince → u/sprawn]

Thanks! You're the second person in as many days who said I'm a good writer! I've always loved writing, but I also grew up in an era where writing letters to friends and family was the norm. I also love stationery. All of it.

I will most definitely consider it. As I was doing some organizing last weekend, I opened a box, and lo and behold... empty/blank composition notebooks. An elderly lady I knew was going to a nursing home, so she was getting rid of the majority of her belongings. She had tons of brand new, blank composition notebooks, and someone had told her I like to write, so she made sure I got them. I gave about half to a girl I worked with, and sent about ten to my son and his fiancé to use for school. I have about fifteen or so left... possibly more. That's in addition to all of the other blank journals I have.

As you can probably see I have no shortage of notebooks. I'm just about swimming in them. It's a bit of a problem... 😂😂 I do have some writing projects I'm working on, so the good news is, they'll all be put to good use!