The Stupidity of Buying Journals

Okay, so the entire human population is looking for a way to express themselves as individuals. We have our own personalities and our own ideas and we need other people to realize how special we are. There needs to be some record left for generations to come that we had a deep thought while sitting by ourselves one evening. Enter - the Journal. Every whatnot store has a ton of them. They come in all different sizes and colors. You can get them with a picture of your favorite movie characters or wresting heroes. They can look professional, Bohemian, or - my favorite - deep. Yes, Deep. I love it when they look as though they already have knowledge seeping from the binding.

So we purchase our Journal, take it home and start to write. However, before we can get to the deep thoughts, we must first spend half an hour writing a special note to the future generation that will come across this Journal and be drawn to its seeping intellectual stimulus. The note says something along the lines of "I'm going to document my time as a coach," or "I am just expanding on all the uniquely random ideas that come into my head (because of course, no one else has ever thought of them)." Then you have to write three pages on your place in life, including age, career and family. The future generations need this!!

Alas, your time has run out. Your writing hand, accustomed to doing no more that signing a random document in this age of computers, is beginning to cramp. Your bedside clock is warning you that it will set off an obnoxious buzz in five short hours, at which time, you will have no choice but to get up and head to your not-so-deep everyday life. No worries - you intend to write again tomorrow evening. You'll get an earlier start so you won't feel pressure to turn off the light and sleep.

Day two. YEAH!! This evening you are going to write deep thoughts. You can tell they are just waiting to burst out. Unfortunately, dinner with the family ran late. Then everyone wanted to play the new Scene-It board game and you hit the mattress and closed your eyes. BUT WAIT!!! You can't neglect your journal so quickly. An entry of "Dinner with fam was fun. Have to run errand tomorrow," will have to suffice.

In the fine tradition of errands, you are run out of energy on day three and completely forget the journal.

Day seven. "Oh yeah...there's a Journal lying beside the bed. I'll write in it." How you feel you must tell the future generations more about the family dinner and errands and why you've neglected your journal for the past week. Once again, you've run out of steam and the deep thoughts are put on hold.

Three months down the road, you half-heartedly pick up your Journal again. You get part-way through the update, lose interest and turn on your favorite Mel Gibson flick.

Three more months sweep by. You don't know where the time went, but in a fury of self-improvement energy, you start spring-cleaning. You take the four-foot high pile of books from beside your bed and put them back in your library (I'm referring to the small four-shelf unit in the family room). When you come across the journal, you sigh in remorse and haul it to your library as well. The potentially - could have been - still may one day be - intellectually filled journal is placed between your high school journal analyzing the works of William Shakespeare and the extra flowery journal given to you by Aunt May, in which you made a few feeble attempts at bad poetry.

So ends the saga of yet another Journal. Don't worry, you will repeat this again when you start a new hobby, take an exotic vacation or watch Finding Forester.