It’s one of those things I’ve never talked about with other people, the most I’ve really been exposed to journal keeping in pop culture is Doug Funny. People don’t talk about their personal journals.
Ever since I was a teenager I’ve sometimes felt compelled to write about major events, and over the years this has become the habit of keeping a journal that I write in almost every day, and sometimes I go back and read old entries. “What was I doing this time last year?” I also sometimes keep notes or such intentionally for future reference.
So, if you keep a journal, do you go back and read it? Why?
I don’t know if my journaling is the same kind of journaling you’re thinking of. For me, it’s kind of like a log of scientific experiments. There’s various problems that I’m trying to work through, and I’ll keep track of how I’m doing relative to those problems in my journal along with whatever solution I’m trying to implement. Figuring out whether something helps or not relies on going back and reading old entries to find trends.