Re:Ask HN: Should I maintain a daily journal of my thoughts?
by insoluble on Monday October 26, 2015 @12:34AM
(#10449630)
While expressing your ideas in words, especially to other people, generally helps you to understand the topics better yourself, I fear that writing every little thought down will dilute the quality of your thinking. If writing helps to solidify ideas in your brain, then perhaps it's best to solidify your best ideas rather than your common ideas. This way, your neurons will be aligned better with your best thinking. Writing everything would presumably amplify the mediocre.
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Re:Ask HN: Should I maintain a daily journal of my thoughts?
by Pamar on Monday October 26, 2015 @04:39AM
(#10450125)
You may have a point, but luckily there is a self-correcting mechanism in place: writing takes time and a little effort, and will compete with other activities (including fun).
I suspect that if you do something like that you soon develop a filter mechanism so that you really write only things that deserve a little effort, and the rest remains "in your head", so to speak.
Re:Ask HN: Should I maintain a daily journal of my thoughts?
by insoluble on Monday October 26, 2015 @01:21PM
(#10452808)
Hopefully this is true, but I could imagine an obsessive person feeling obliged to write all thoughts or otherwise not to miss anything. I feel that the Web is filled with low-quality thoughts from persons who wrote on impulse rather than reserving writing for those thoughts having value. Having a personal habit of watching one's writing could in theory help the world by minimising garbage. HN is a pretty good example of deliberate writing, at least as compared to most places.