That’s what Virginia Woolf called them – the shiny little thoughts that sometimes find their way tucked among the detritus that constitutes most daily diary entries — “diamonds of the dustheap.” I learned this expression this morning when I read a charming Opinion piece in the New York Times (my morning intellectual smorgasbord du jour), “Why I Love Reading Other People’s Diaries” by Lily Koppel (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/29/opinion/diaries-writing-ai.html ).
The beauty of hand-written diaries, Woolf noted in her diary on April 20, 1919, Koppel says, was that they’re “elastic,” “loose knit,” embracing anything “solemn, slight or beautiful that comes to mind.” Preserving these half-formed thoughts on paper, Woolf felt, was the point: “The advantage of the method,” Woolf wrote, “is that it sweeps up accidentally several stray matters which I should exclude if I hesitated, but which are the diamonds of the dustheap.”
Beautiful! When I reposted this Opinion piece on Facebook, I commented in solid caps, “I’M WITH HER!”
(Stock photo)
As it happened, I’d just turned, as is my wont, to the NYTimes after spending some time this morning pouring my heart out to my ever-steadfast journal. This, plus my please-and-thank-you prayers to my conception of God, has been part of my morning ritual for as long as I can remember — at least throughout my adult life. I credit these rituals for keeping me afloat through years of stormy seas.
My daily journal entries, handwritten in spiral notebooks, have been like therapy sessions for me. (Think of the many thousands of dollars I’ve saved on therapists’ fees over the years.) I pretend I’m “talking” with a therapist (or friend or lover or family member or roommate) who genuinely cares and studiously listens. This make-believe works best, I guess, for those of us who live alone and don’t have or can’t afford a therapist.
Most of what I write, to be sure, is total drivel (at least 99% of it), which nobody – and I mean nobody – would care to read. But every once in a while, after I’ve gone through the what-I-did-yesterday and what-I’m-planning-to-do-today stuff and dig into the what’s-going-on-in-the-world-and-what-I’m-thinking-and-feeling-about-it, I come up with little thoughts worth keeping and insights worth considering more deeply. Forgive the cliché, please, but it’s a lot like peeling back an onion, tearing off the outside layers little by little to get to the core of what matters.
This morning, for example, I told my journal about my awful day yesterday, how paralyzingly down I felt about the state of the world. I wrote about how upsetting it is for me to see the videos of the people in Gaza living (or trying to live) in rain-whipped tents, sloshing through ankle-deep waters. I wrote I could smell those sewerage-infested waters, feel the cold winter rains and the wet clothing and soaking-wet blankets that fail to keep anyone warm, sense the hunger and thirst and hopelessness of the people so cruelly treated by their oppressors.
But what could or should I do with these emotions, I wrote as I sat up in my warm, clean bed in my sun-filled apartment in the safe and peaceful central mountains of Mexico drinking my freshly made coffee? Which way to turn?
One way to deal with it all, I supposed, is to stop watching the news. This approach is the one many comfortable people, whom I call “The Comfies,” are taking. It’s all getting to be too, too much. Everywhere we look, the earth seems to be crumbling beneath our feet, so maybe we should stop looking and just keep on keeping on as if all is okay?
I’m afraid I can’t do that. Because I know it’s not okay.
Writing is what I do, so I’m writing now to recommend writing as therapy – especially if you, too, are distraught by today’s news. It likely won’t solve the world’s problems, but it will at least help soothe your own. Write from your heart. In ink. Get your anguish off your chest and onto paper. Save the paper like a cherished friend. Protect it from the tentacles of invading artificial intelligences and rogue online algorithms. Create a physical archive, a treasure chest.
Maybe someday someone – a great (or great-great)-grandchild, perhaps – might be interested in digging into the dustheap of your diaries to discover tiny diamonds in your thoughts about the state of the world during your lifetime. Perhaps if or when that day comes, once-bleeding human hearts will be venerated relics. Maybe that day isn’t so far off after all.
As Koppel wrote in her inspiring Opinion piece, “Diaries are uniquely suited to preserving our individual lives and imaginations. … A diary is the place to express what you think about the world — a safe hold of memory and some of our deepest human feelings. There’s no way this form of thinking could ever truly be replaced by A.I.”
“So,” Koppel says in closing, “raise your pen, and make your mark — even if you are your only reader, or leave your notes for another to find.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
For more on the scientific value of journaling, go to:
https://www.reflection.app/blog/benefits-of-journaling .
And if journaling is new to you, be sure to read Julia Cameron’s classic book, THE ARTIST’S WAY for an excellent how-to.
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Oh, la Bonnie! You mentioned your diary in your memoirs. I always thought “muy interesantes they must be.” I am sure there are muchos diamantes hermosos in them.
Muchisimas gracias, querida Te! Yes, I’ve always kept a diary/journal, and they’ve been invaluable in writing my books based on my experiences in Africa, for example. I hope you are doing well. Come and visit!
I can’t stop looking either. Or writing and telling stories. Or trying to show the stories. I work too many hours every day. Now I am trying to produce a four volume script/history book series, “100 Years Ago in Mexico.” And a ScriptBook series with two scripts set in Mexico per volume. Feel I am running out of time. And a MusicBook for Jesse Moore. Plus there are the 50 videos I made for my YouTube channel that I am trying to find someone to run. And the 92 short stories I wrote in 92 days when YouTube put me in a 90 day time out. Number 92 turned into a duel memoir with an artist in England, because “they arrested someone else for murder—“Searching For Romance in Durango.” It clearly violated my non disclosure agreement with the Dalí Museum. I told everything. Luckily we only sold 100 copies. Nearly dying makes one realize that time is running out. I hope to produce and publish six more books with five other writers by the end of 2026. It comes in handy to have a publishing company, if a very small one. If only I knew now what I didn’t know then. I guess this was today’s journal entry. Can I get a copy of this. I am keeping a journal, but it is spread between Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Google Docs. Wish I had more time. Thanks for the encouragement. Scott (Is “on” below with the buttons to the right or left? I want them on.)
Whew, Scott, you certainly keep busy! Good for you. Keep up the good work.
Enjoyed this little gem, as I lie in bed
waiting for power to be restored to the colonial.
Gracias
De nada, dear Rhoda. I hope your power has come back.
Oh, dear Bonnie, how right you are about getting the anguish off our chests and on to paper. I, like you, have been keeping small notebooks of my early morning thoughts, sometimes late at night anguish., for many years. Though it doesn’t solve the deep problems of the material world, it can provide relief for we observers and sufferers. As my wise father always said to me, when I was bothered, hurt or worried about something: “get it off your chest honey! You’ll feel better, ” . Thus, I wrote. Thank you, again Bonnie for your wise words.
Thanks so much for your kind words, Sher. And another benefit of “getting it off our chest and onto paper” is that the small insights we sometimes come up with in this process help us to be more effective in dealing with the larger issues beyond ourselves.
I wish I had your self-discipline! I’ve always intended to write a diary and I’ve written a few entries over the course of 60 years. Even though I know it sharpens the writing skill and softens the heart, I end up abandoning the effort. Good for you Bonnie.
Don’t give up, querida Kim! I know you can do it, poco a poco. Start small — five minutes (use a timer) every morning… then increase it to ten… then more… until it becomes part of your normal morning routine, one that you look forward to, like a date with a friend. I think you’ll find it very beneficial.
Dear Bon,
As someone who kept a journal for ten years after reading The Artist’s Way, I can confirm that Julia Cameron can and will inspire and show you the way to make journaling a daily habit. It didn’t take long for it to become a necessary part of my day, and I wrote three pages daily. What I wrote was also 99% drivel, but freeing your mind of the drivel is a vital part of the process. Then, if I was lucky, some honest, riveting thought would sometimes break through, usually after at least two pages of writing. And sometimes, that one meaningful sentence is enough to change your day around and remind you that your journal is your best friend.
Reading your post makes me want to go back to writing every day. It’s been a long time since I did it, but I have no excuse why I can’t do it.
Love,
Paul
Thank you so, so much, dear Paul, for elaborating on my post and endorsing Cameron’s book! Yes, it’s one of those life-changing books we’re tempted to press on everyone. It’s been my experience, too, that those little (tiny!) golden nuggets that sometimes emerge from journal writing make it all worthwhile and often give fresh direction to our day. Now you know you have “no excuse” for not resuming this daily habit! — xx