Introduction, of course

“The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their place, insomuch that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same.”
- Plutarch, Theseus

So the basic premise is for me to open my first post here with an allusion to some important, complicated idea in an attempt to imply that there is a larger goal in this undertaking (or at least make myself seem intelligent). I’ve never claimed to be a philosopher, so there’s a better-than-average chance that I don’t fully understand the passage from Theseus or the accompanying philosophical inquiry. This already seems like a poor idea.

I am a lucky person. I didn’t decide to do this because I suffered some horrific accident and was left questioning my identity as a result of a limb replacement or a heart transplant. I decided to do this because I have kept my old journals from over a decade ago for reasons that I can’t really explain. I’m pretty sure that I haven’t had any parts replaced, but when I read these old journals I do have a feeling that I’m not really the same person I was then. This seems like a natural and typical feeling, but I don’t mean to say that I believe I’ve changed or matured. I legitimately feel that these thoughts and records belong to someone completely separate and apart from myself. In most cases these entries aren’t really memories; these are more like shadows of memories: strange, awkward reminders of things I supposedly did or felt. What connection do I have to these journal entries or the person who wrote them?

Beyond my attempt at vaguely philosophical musings, I really just think that a lot of these journal entries are funny. While I was a good student in elementary and middle school, it’s clear looking back that I had no interest in using these journals for anything productive. And since sharing these things with you individually would be complicated and difficult, I thought it would be fun (and maybe even rewarding!) to expose these childhood and adolescent journal entries. It’s not that I don’t have shame, it’s more than I can’t really feel embarrassment for stuff that I do not recall writing at all. Plus, it will be fun (for me at least) to revisit this stuff and hopefully share it with people.

There are four main journals that I intend to use for this little project, all (mainly) from school or for school and written during a specific year. The first is the black and white composition notebook I used during third grade, which was essentially the inspiration for this whole plan due to its general excitement and lack of actual creative content. The second is the reporter-style steno notebook that I kept for ALP throughout fourth grade. I didn’t rediscover this journal until this year, and while it only has weekly entries (which I still didn’t meet all the time), there are great moments of bitter honesty, however brief. The third journal is a red single subject notebook that was used throughout sixth grade, when we actually had to follow topics and submit journal entries for a grade rather than as some simpler chronicle of “progress.” This journal is by far the most brutal to read, if only because the teacher gave us the option of folding the page for “personal topics” that we didn’t want her to read. Naturally, I took full advantage.

Lastly, we have the tattered, ragged blue three subject notebook that I used for Free Writing in my Language Arts class in the eighth grade. This journal deserves special mention because it contains something that was very important during those formative early teenage years: the second part of the unending project I had simply titled “Annoyance.” The first part of “Annoyance” was broken up into serials which I gave to my friends, and unless one of them has miraculously and inexplicably maintained a copy for the last fifteen years, the first part of this epic tale is sadly lost forever. I am not sure how reproducing “Annoyance” in this format will work alongside the other journal entries I want to share, so I will probably only use this frayed excuse for a notebook when including the infrequent personal comments (which I refer to as “interruptions”). This approach might not work, but if there is enough interest (and I hope there will be), I will consider investing some time into an Annoyance project and putting this seminal text on the internet for the world to see.

My goal is to redact as little as possible from these accounts, and I plan to keep everything intact, typos and all, showing you all the gritty details that rest in the pages of my journals. Given my noted lack of interest in maintaining most of these journals at the time, some of the entries may be a little lacking, so I will take measures to make each update worthwhile. Hopefully I can entertain you with accurate reproductions of the nuggets of wisdom that the eight-year-old, nine-year-old, eleven-year-old, and thirteen-year-old versions of myself felt important enough to record for posterity. This is their time to shine: this is that posterity.

And I almost forgot: there will be footnotes!