The Tao of Journaling: A Method to Survive Madness
A source of strength through an unbearable life
Mortals in Greek mythology sometimes have the ability to travel between worlds. They could, for instance, go to the underworld, pay their dues to Hades, and come back to the land of the living with altered states of mind.
I find this similar to when a human mind, having no outlet to direct its intellect, plagues its bearer with fantasies or reveries that have no order or purpose. But these reveries, when tamed, chart a path towards the discovery of gems hidden deep in the human psyche.
The Big Sick
I went to such depths when I caught a cold. It was not just a regular cold — I felt like something had come for me. A malignancy that manifested itself in the form of a heaving chest for every sneeze, nasal blockages, acute shortness of breaths, and muscles tingling as if someone sent tiny sparks of current through me.
In Jay-Z’s 4:44, a man had an altercation with an unspecified person and found himself down on the ground with a bullet in his belly. And in what he thought were his last moments, he called upon the Lord.
His words:
“I was just laying on the ground with the bullet in my stomach and I was just like Lord, just don’t let me go out like this. Don’t take me like this.” And he subconsciously heard the Lord talk back to him. The Lord said, “I’m not going to take you, I’ve shown you too much to take you. You’re not done.”
I am not comparing myself to that guy. But I did think about him.
I didn’t do any work, and with that, every passing day made me feel worthless. I couldn’t bear sitting. I needed strength. My mind became a foggy soup. I felt there was nowhere else for me to turn to other than Thucydides or Marcus Aurelius.
But I also wanted a narrative to follow, so it had to be Thucydides. So I lay in bed all day, reading speeches from the History of The Peloponnesian War and skipping the parts where Thucydides had to give more context.
I remember accompanying my close friend, Andrew, for chemotherapy back in 2016. He had been diagnosed with late-stage cancer of the colon. There were moments when the chemo had to be done at night. There were nights, no one was there to stay with him. I kept him company one time, and it was just the two of us. I remember wondering what I would do to keep myself ‘default alive’ if I ever found myself in his shoes, bedridden like him.
Once or twice a week, he lay there, alone for hours, unable to exercise his free will. Even when he had company, sometimes he was too tired to talk.
I thought he must have had many thoughts, and it would have been best for him to seek a reprieve. I thought, naively, that perhaps if I found myself in such a situation, I would tell my brother to get my audiobooks and some comfortable headphones. And I would read all the snippets of histories I hadn’t read. I would still hold on to what I loved doing most — curling up with a book — in sickness, and in health.
Everybody loved Andrew. He was kind, quick to make friends, and easy to talk to — His warmth reached people’s souls. He had an aura I hoped to achieve. When the chemos were over, he still maintained his cheerful nature. So I don’t know how he held it together. Maybe he also had a way of dealing with the unbearable state of things.
I spent three days of the flu this way, going through my favorite bits in the History of the Peloponnesian War.
I was with Pericles in the Athenian assembly, listening to him for the first time before the war. His words struck me the way Agnes Obel’s Chord Left does — Slowly, with a pristine heaviness as old and soulful as time itself.
And I saw it all: the Athenians walled themselves inside their city, their stance towards Pericles turning darker as the Spartans ravaged the fields beyond the Athenian walls. Here I am at the onset of the plague, listening to Pericles’ speech at a funeral. I read Pericles’s last words before his death with a heavy heart. I saw oracles portend fortune, and men full of courage fight bravely in naval battles, employing cunning strategies at sea. At home, merchants brought hopeful news, but even this waned as the days went by. I experienced entire swings of the psychological pendulum — War, more war, tides turning, regret, anger, mistrust, and eventually death.
A method to the madness
1 In 1571, the writer and philosopher Michel De Montaigne became weary of his life as a servant of the court and public employment. At the age of 38, his wife pregnant with their first child, Montaigne decided to retire to his father’s estate. He wanted to begin a new, reflective existence.
Months into his retirement, he found himself with less work than he was used to. This inactivity generated strange thoughts that were out of character for him. No sooner had he retired than his mind galloped off like a runaway horse. His head filled with nonsense, just as a fallow field fills with weeds. It generated raving delusions and directionless whimsies. These ‘reveries’ gave him another mad idea: the thought of writing.
Finding his mind filled with chimeras and fantastic monsters, one after another, he decided not to directly overcome them but write them down as a way to inspect their strangeness at his leisure. So he picked up his pen, and the first of the Essays was born. 2
Write, or else…
I identify as an introvert. I mostly keep to myself, except when it involves work. I have few friends offline. I love being alone, but it’s a gift and a curse. My mind is fussy by nature. Perceptions come and go so quickly that if I don’t work, I fear it could eat me from inside. (The mind eating itself, what a paradox.)
I can relate to Montaigne’s retreat into writing to tame his reveries.
I must write, for my thoughts become fuzzy when I don’t write. It feels like I’m full of fragment thoughts that can only be turned into coherent narratives when you write them down. Being able to paint a picture of my reality this way gives me a sense of purpose. It untangles things. I find myself stuck in indecisive limbo for days if I don’t write.
My salvation lies in paying attention to what is happening inside me and trying my best to understand it. I follow no prescribed method of writing. There are no questions or templates. I try to hit at least 500 words. There are days when I barely do, and there are days when I will write double that.
I write about what I feel. I review decisions I’ve made — Sometimes, those pages are full of regret and self-abnegation. I write about things that bother me, issues I’m working on, and how they are likely to play out in the future. Sometimes I even write my interpretations of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.
Fragments…
I will find a piece of writing, carry it with me, and break it down as I write. For instance, I’ve been contemplating this piece from Thucydides’, History of the Peloponnesian War:
“Athenian daring will outrun its resources; they will take risks against their better judgment and remain confident in danger. But your nature is to always do less than you could have done, to mistrust your own judgment, however sound it may be, and to assume that dangers will last forever.
Think of this, too: while you’re hanging back, they never hesitate; while you stay at home, they are always abroad; for they think that the farther they go, the more they will get, while you think that any movement may endanger what you have already.
If they win a victory, they follow it up at once, and if they suffer a defeat they scarcely fall back at all. Of them alone, it may be said that they possess a thing almost as soon as they have begun to desire it, so quickly with them does action follow upon decision.
And so, they go on working away in hardship and danger all the days of their lives, seldom enjoying their possessions because they are constantly adding to them. Their view of a holiday is to do what needs doing; they prefer hardship and activity to peace and quiet. In a word, they are by nature incapable of either living a quiet life themselves or allowing anyone else to do so….”
Part of a speech by the Corinthians, who went to make their case to the Spartans, having felt slighted by the Athenians in the early years before the war. Their goal was to convince the Spartans to join them in waging war against the Athenians.
Here’s another. I love how Thucydides described Themistocles:
“Indeed, Themistocles was a man who showed an unmistakable natural genius; in this respect, he was quite exceptional and beyond all others deserves our admiration. Without studying a subject in advance or deliberating over it later, but using simply the intelligence that was his by nature, he had the power to reach the right conclusion in matters that have to be settled on the spur of the moment and do not admit to lengthy discussions. In estimating what was likely to happen, his forecasts of the future were always more reliable than those of others.
He could perfectly well explain any subject with which he was familiar, and even outside how own department, he was still capable of giving an excellent opinion. He was particularly remarkable at looking into the future and seeing the hidden possibilities of good and evil. To sum him up in a few words, it may be said that through force of genius and rapidity of action, this man was supreme at doing precisely the right thing at precisely the right moment.”
By Diverse Means, We Arrive at The Same End.
A few years ago, I came across a routine practice called morning pages.
I was reading Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. Her book advocates for morning pages as a technique for assisting people to gain self-confidence in harnessing their creative talents and skills.
Morning Pages are three pages of longhand, stream of consciousness writing done first thing in the morning. *There is no wrong way to do Morning Pages*-They are not high art. They are not even “writing.” They are about anything and everything that crosses your mind- and they are for your eyes only. Morning Pages provoke, clarify, comfort, cajole, prioritize and synchronize the day at hand. Do not overthink Morning Pages: just put three pages of anything on the page…and then do three more pages tomorrow.
I read the book in 2018. I wrote a few pieces for maybe a week or two. Nothing serious, just reveries, like memories from my childhood, thoughts about my day, the weather, and little things I’d observed. But I didn’t commit to it. It wasn’t coming from inside me — yes, I understood it would be helpful, but I wasn’t hungry for it.
Four years later. It’s 2022, and I feel bold enough to build a digital product and sell it to people. I think of it as something I could commit to, that it could be a way to expand myself. I have embraced fitness. I meditate sometimes.
Most importantly, I feel the need for more clarity. Meditation works from a holistic perspective, but it’s not enough. I want to have structured thoughts and be able to outline them. I want to see things very clearly, every day. So writing is my method to this madness. But it’s not the original morning pages as Julia Cameron intended. It’s more like writing for myself in a Montaigne kind of way.
Originally published at https://randomtheory.substack.com on May 15, 2022.
1 Sarah Bakewell wrote a wonderful book about Montaigne’s quest on how to live. How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer.
2 What Made Michel De Montaigne The First Modern Man? Me, Myself, and I.
