Once More to the Lake
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- Date Submitted: 08/29/2012 12:36 AM
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Kirsten Enriquez
Jordan
A.P Language and Composition
16 August 2012
On Keeping a Notebook
An individual from today’s generation might wonder, “Why do people keep a notebook?” Do they keep a notebook to simply record memories, scribble facts, or write down what they see right before them? I’ve noticed that a notebook can be an important and special tool. It can contain vivid and mundane thoughts meant to be hidden from the public eye and the outside world. For many years, a notebook has been used as a diary, a journal, and even a scrapbook. All in which contain a writer’s emotions, ideas, and thoughts. In the essay called On Keeping a Notebook, Joan Didion, the author, shares a unique reason for keeping a notebook where it becomes more of a knowledge holder of flashbacks, memories, and less of recorded events.
The author argues that a notebook is an expression of a person’s feelings at a time rather than a diary which has factual events. “So the point of my keeping a notebook has never been, nor is it now, to have an accurate factual record of what I have been doing or thinking”(1). Didion admits that these factual notes written inside her notebook do not really show a realistic significance. However, these random facts bring about an emotional significance to her at times.
“It is a good idea, then to keep in touch and I suppose that keeping in touch is what notebooks are all about”(4). Notebooks will be one’s only prized possessions of today; it will be the only object one will rely on.
Unlike the author’s perspective, my point-of-view of keeping a notebook directly supports factual events and memories. Yes I do journal my thoughts. Therefore I use a notebook as a diary. From day to day, I record my memories as lifelong thoughts not as temporary ones.
I do agree with some of Joan Didion’s reasons and ideas. “And sometimes even the maker has difficulty with the meaning”(3). There are times when I scribble down thoughts but after a while I...
Jordan
A.P Language and Composition
16 August 2012
On Keeping a Notebook
An individual from today’s generation might wonder, “Why do people keep a notebook?” Do they keep a notebook to simply record memories, scribble facts, or write down what they see right before them? I’ve noticed that a notebook can be an important and special tool. It can contain vivid and mundane thoughts meant to be hidden from the public eye and the outside world. For many years, a notebook has been used as a diary, a journal, and even a scrapbook. All in which contain a writer’s emotions, ideas, and thoughts. In the essay called On Keeping a Notebook, Joan Didion, the author, shares a unique reason for keeping a notebook where it becomes more of a knowledge holder of flashbacks, memories, and less of recorded events.
The author argues that a notebook is an expression of a person’s feelings at a time rather than a diary which has factual events. “So the point of my keeping a notebook has never been, nor is it now, to have an accurate factual record of what I have been doing or thinking”(1). Didion admits that these factual notes written inside her notebook do not really show a realistic significance. However, these random facts bring about an emotional significance to her at times.
“It is a good idea, then to keep in touch and I suppose that keeping in touch is what notebooks are all about”(4). Notebooks will be one’s only prized possessions of today; it will be the only object one will rely on.
Unlike the author’s perspective, my point-of-view of keeping a notebook directly supports factual events and memories. Yes I do journal my thoughts. Therefore I use a notebook as a diary. From day to day, I record my memories as lifelong thoughts not as temporary ones.
I do agree with some of Joan Didion’s reasons and ideas. “And sometimes even the maker has difficulty with the meaning”(3). There are times when I scribble down thoughts but after a while I...