Journal the Adventure

I promise this has a triathlon point. Of course you are reading this blog entry using a 21st Century contrivance but long before the advent of this blog or before I knew what the internet was, I 'journaled' using everything from Composition books to Steno Pads, to small notepads that fit into the blouse pocket of my uniform.

Everything went in there from my notes on how to establish the perfect ambush, to frustrations at my shortcomings, to my workout details and nutrition, to the joys and highlights of my life, including entries like race reports, my wedding day, starting a company from scratch and the birth of my son. Going far enough back I can trace the meandering thoughts that eventually became the bedrock foundation of my entire future, all there pen to paper.

There is something that uniquely stirs me when writing by hand. At sunrise, or sunset, sometimes even in the dark, at a sidewalk bar with a steamy cup of coffee early or maybe a tall frosty ale later. Some of my most intense journalling came in the early 1990's when I spent hundreds of hours sitting with my back against the wall of a centuries old fort in the south pacific and wrote a vision of my life that still leads me today.

Which leads me to the two misgivings of this wonderful blog. First, my journalling /blogging became mostly singular in thought and not the ramblings of someone who prefered to write stream of conscious. It is the lesser of the misgiving though as I love nothing more in athletics than triathlon. The second, is that I have to censor my thoughts which when put on online through CMS, become comments and that is not the purpose of journalling.

A few years ago I went back to journalling. Though it is now simply called an Adventure Journal. See the sad fact is that even on the great show '24', its just one day and the protagonist still lives 24/7/365, but how boring that must seem in comparision. So while I my heart soars through the the inspiration I provide on CMS, my mind is cleared in my journalling. My Adventure Journal only goes with me when I hike or travel or to memorialize a specific experience, like a race report, a day, a trip. I have written a much on airplanes as I have on rocky outcroppings. Along with my introspections, I will often include my terrible drawings, map datum, a momento depending on the location and hopefully later a photograph.

Why? Why have a journal and a blog? History I suppose. One that will last on with the future of my children and heirs. It is the collective story of how, why and who I am. in this time. I think that a blog is a very unemotional and contrived way to accomplish this. Touching a leather bound journal or seeing in block letters the long ago date on a notebook is an everlasting experience. It elicits the forbidden fantasy of reading someones diary and maybe learning their deepest secrets.

Now I choose distressed leather bound journals with a strap closure, call it the renassiance in me. Barnes and Noble sells a great collection of this type. Journalling is something that can bring a person much closer with who that want to be, what they see, and a way to get past the urbane crap that stunts our true inner growth. Looking at those blank pages and wondering what will next be inserted from my life brings me so much greater joy than clicking 'New Post'.

There's treasure everywhere