netWert
Ideapad
netWert: Ideapad + Journal + I Art Wert + Whimsy
Extra! Extra! Read All About Me!
Why I do what I do here

November 1, 2000


For years I kept a journal of sorts in a weekly desktop calendar. Starting with a gift calendar in 1989 or 1990, I dutifully began recording the events of my life on a regular basis, sitting down every week or so to jot down what had happened to me.

My journal was never a diary, except for a few failed days of introspection during my angst-ridden sophomore year of high school. Instead, it was something of a chronicle. I kept track of what I did, where and when I did it, and with whom. I never, ever put in any emotional detail, save for the occasional adjective or smiley face.

A typical day's entry would look something like this:
Saturday 20
a.m.
10 -- haircut
     run errands -- mall, Tops, CD World
p.m.
     lunch @ Calabria
3 -- stop by Brian's
6 -- home
8 -- dinner @ CB's Millburn: 
     Brian, Rob, Susie, Jay, Andy
10 -- movie @ my house, Adrienne stops by
     Officer Zielke
     Rob over late
The journal was something I thought was generally a worthwhile endeavor. My memory is less than spectacular, so the journal gave me a handy resource to aid my recollection. And logging my life somehow gave my days added weight and significance.

Updating my journal was something of a chore, but it was not unlike calling Mom and Dad from college: I rarely felt like doing it, but when I got around to it, I was happy that I had done so.

I kept my journal fairly religiously until I graduated college. Once I started working, it became more difficult to bother, not for any external reason but because my heart wasn't in it as much. I still felt obligated to it, but between work and late city nights I would go longer periods of time without updating.

After I moved into New York City, the updates dropped precipitously, due to my new lifestyle as much as the fact that I started carrying around a day planner that recorded events in advance. Subconsciously, I must have gotten tired of jotting everything down twice, even though they served much different purposes and contained different information.

In November 1998 -- two years ago today -- I began taking regular notes online in what I titled my Ideapad. It was meant to be a forum for my observations, and flipping back to those early entries bears it as such: I talked about sports, business, the Internet, and the weather, among other things.

But as I got more into my writing, I got more introspective. The Ideapad turned into a public diary of sorts, even though that was not its intent. As my desktop journal entries lessened -- I would go two months without jotting anything down, then work backward, with little notes like "I was really bad at this from April 20 till this week" -- online ones began to take their place.

I have always been fairly careful with my Ideapad writings. I hardly ever name names, and the confessional nature of my notes has been meticulously worded: in actuality, the less a reader knows me, the less revealing my Ideapad entries are. The inverse is also true, however, and I have long been questioned about my motives and, among other things, my sanity.

Only recently have I realized what happened. I replaced one journal with another, and in doing so, I completely reversed the model. Rather than diligently keep track of the daily events in my life, I started to keep personal, ambiguous notes of my emotions and observations. What happened from day to day became less important than what I thought of it. And instead of a subconscious fear of someone stumbling across my diary, I ended up turning my words inside-out to create material for public consumption.

I believe that in recent weeks I have found a happy medium; my online journal (now separated from the venerable Ideapad, which has of late turned into a weblog) is more of an outlet for observations and creative writing than the confessional booth it nearly became. And I have given up on my weekly calendar journal, replacing it with my day planner, in which I now go back and record events after they happen.

I don't know where my muse will take me next. I do know that in various ways I have been compelled to keep track of my life for ten years running. I am sure that will continue. Whether or not I'll bring an audience along for the ride remains to be seen.

But someday, when I am old and my memory failing, I will be able to look back at my journals with fondness, and remember my past in vivid detail. And it will be wonderful.

More at the Ideapad or see netWert home

Copyright © 2000 David Wertheimer. All rights reserved.