Journal Entry – #001

17Feb2005

And so it starts – a diary, in which my thoughts shall be engraved for posterity. That is, if I don’t rip it apart first. I shall write it in any way & language I fancy, after all, it’s mine, posterity be damned, for I shall have none! These thoughts are never to leave these sheets unless, of course, someone wants them to. In fact, after it’s written, I will have no power whatsoever over this diary – if I can, if I remember, I’ll hide it; after I’m dead, pity – or over my life, since I’ll be dead by the time someone reads it. At least in spirit, feeling an ominous shiver, unconscious that someone’s reading my diary.

Even though it is a diary and has all the secrets & facts of my life – and that’s why it’s called ‘diary’ – & it’s sure to attract the curiosity of people – diaries are like magnets; I know, I’ve read my fair share of them – I’ll advise you against reading it. You’ll be disappointed. I’m disappointed with it already. Diaries always disappoint me. The gracious image we’ve got of the owners of the diaries vanish as soon as we read the first lines. Such weaknesses, such bad grammar, such a terrible handwriting! We open the diaries expecting to read some awful truth, to find out some terrible secret… and there are only dreary tales of the daily grind. tales without style, without plot, intense as a slumbering puddle. It’s not difficult to understand why I gave up reading diaries. It was not the guilt of peering into another’s secrets: it was the boredom of reading them. See, I’m bored already! Aren’t you? I think the worst thing about diaries is that people only talk about themselves in them! Is there anything more boring than reading pages and pages about a boring life, told by a boring person? Yes, to listen to them.

What is more, the subjects never change. Complaints, love confessions that’ll never come true, anger towards the parents, the teachers, anger towards the world, heartrending self-pity, backstabbing of friends, and a bunch of nonsense. That’s the essence of diaries. You might claim that’s not like that, that you’ve read diaries that escape this definition, but I pray; analyse them further, and you’ll see they’re but variations – even though well done – on the same theme. I won’t escape it either.

Quoting Dante: “Leave all hope, ye who enter here!”

(End of Preface)