Look at all this crap. Every once in a while I feel a need to get rid of all my stuff. Compared to a lot of people I don’t have too much clutter in the sense that I actually use most of what I have (that doesn’t stop my room from appearing cluttered since I tend to leave said stuff all over the place). The main stuff I have that doesn’t pass the “have I used it in the past 3 months” test is my dang journals.

I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about getting rid of them. I rarely look at them. But even as I was taking them out of their (extremely) dusty boxes I got all sentimental. It’s so nice to hold and flip through memories! Plus I used to look at them all the time. What if I want to see them again?

Not to mention there’s something very pleasing about a big ol’ stack of journals – it’s a tangible result of living (or more accurately, recording) your life.

But the pile is only going to get bigger – is it really worth lugging around pounds of books (disclosure: I seem to move more often than the regular person) just to have this weird merit badge that I store away in a box anyway?

As I’ve mentioned before, art journals in particular are neat because there is a lot packed into that little image. Does the image have to physically be in my hands? Why not digitize (fortunately all my recent ones already are digital thanks to this blog!)? All the memories and such are still there, it’s not less effective just because I can’t hold the thing.

Reading posts like mnmlist’s cherished mementos doesn’t help, wherein he advocates doing exactly that: taking pictures of things you love because the important thing is the memory, not the thing. Why are journals the exception? Because they’re personal? Take a long time to make?

For me, the benefit of journaling has always been the actual act of doing it. Touchin’ all up in the books is nice and all but again, it’s the memories associated, not the books themselves. Would it really be so horrible to journal, digitize (if necessary), and then get rid of the book itself? I think part of it is they are little works of art (of debatable quality), so they are hard to throw away. Maybe if I gave them to somebody else I would feel less irrationally guilty.

I ask because I’m seriously trying to figure it out. I don’t want this stuff anymore but I’m worried I’ll regret getting rid of them since they are actually irreplaceable, as opposed to other stuff I throw out with impunity. But then if I guess that happens I can just start over with a new career as a journal hoarder.

Why do you cling (or not) to the journal as a physical object?

No video for these because I screwed them up so many times it was just frustrating. The screw-ups were mostly due to the fact that I refuse!! to let the page dry all the way before I mess with it. D: I need to not do that so much.

Here’s to 2012!