Writing is the noblest of art forms, the distillation of all human experience and learning. The world would be a much darker, less enlightened, place if humans had not had the desire to share our thoughts, feelings and experiences via the written word. You don’t have to be a Hemingway or even a Douglas Adams to share your thoughts and experiences. In fact, you don’t have to share them at all. Journaling is a therapeutic and satisfying act.

Speedway journals

Many a writer has started in this way, keeping their thoughts, musings and a secret or two in a diary. It has also been a well-spring of historical information. Much of what historians know about the past has come from personal diaries and journals kept further back than the Renaissance. These days memoir has gained much popular appeal, affording us  private look into the lives of those we don’t know. Often these personal stories show us a world we would otherwise never have a peek into. How wonderfully intimate, even prurient, it is read the letters and journals of another. To see through their eyes and hear through their ears, if only for a moment.

Much healing has also been accomplished through the sharing of experience. Knowing one is not alone is a powerful thing. Seeing how our fellows fought through their own struggles, many that mirror our own, helps us cope in an often confounding and overwhelming world. We think, “If they can do it, so can I!” Journals can also be a priceless gift to our families, our children and generations to follow. They give us a place in history, put our feet on the ground of time, allow us to see how we came to be and share the events that shaped us.

Teens often find comfort in the act of writing. In a viral world social media is not always the best place to put these private thoughts lest they come back to haunt us. No one has the point of view that you do. No one sees the way you see. Don’t discount your observations and history, it is yours and worth remembering because you are the only one who will ever have it.

Bookmans has many different journals for every style of writing. Pick one up today and start your own story. Share a secret of two. The world and the future will be glad you did.