A thought diary

Daily writing might actually be a necessary part of a happy life

When I travel, I write daily about my adventures, mostly in hopes that it will help me more fully remember my journeys. Coming home after a recent big trip, one that kind of changed my life, I realized that daily writing might actually be a necessary part of a happy life, but what on earth would I write about?

I recently read two books by Jan Morris, a remarkable Welsh author who wrote travel, history and memoir, that have given me an idea. Morris, near the end of her very long life, published In My Mind’s Eye: A Thought Diary(2018) and Thinking Again (2020), made up of daily observations, rants and remembrances. I absolutely loved the randomness of her offerings, and I was captured by the concept of the Thought Diary.

The view from a Welsh window. July 2015

You may not know Jan Morris, or if you do it might be in the context of her Pax Britannica trilogy on the British Empire. Her views on empire are of her time, to put it mildly, and I often cringe when I read her work. But there is value, I think, in understanding what people in the past really thought, even when we wholeheartedly disagree.

Morris also wrote a memoir titled Conundrum, published in the 1970s, one of the first books on gender transition.

Morris lived an extraordinary life, and she wrote about all of it. Right up to the end. I feel that she was compelled to write, writing for writing’s sake.

As I process my own travels, particularly my recent time on and around the Antarctic peninsula, the Falkland Islands, Argentina and Perú, I am also feeling that compulsion to write. I need to more fully understand what I experienced, what I learned, and all the questions that have arisen upon my return home.

I’m going to take a page from Jan Morris’ book, and I’m going to write a daily thought diary. I’m going to take time each morning to just say what I think. And occasionally, I might write something interesting enough to share. Who knows.