Truly like a ninja.
I have a friend, Ninja, who lives his life in such a way that it should be worthy of being made into a movie. In everything he does, that’s how he’ll treat things. It’s quite fitting that everyone sees him as a ninja, prowling around doing all kinds of cool moves and getting into spectacular “fights.” I’m sure everyone would love to have his approach to life. It’s really quite cool, because then he’s always having exciting adventures. It helps that he’s extremely athletic, so he can escape situations if needed. One of the examples was when he went to the midnight showing of Indiana Jones (whichever one just came out in the past year or so) dressed in a leather jacket, leather hat/fedora thing, and (real) bullwhip. After the show ended, he stood up on the balcony and cracked his whip to cheers and whistles until security approached. He then made a run for it and got out unscathed. Now how awesome is that?!
Having too much fun to write about it!
Well, the thing is, if you’re out having such a fantastic time all the time, you never have time to record it for others to enjoy or for it to be passed down in the books. This is a dilemma that I face all the time as I ponder how worthwhile it is for me to maintain a daily journal. It started back in 4th grade, when I wanted a diary from the Scholastic Fair, but my dad would only allow me to buy it if I promised to write in it every day. I did, and he got me the diary, but never again asked about it. It was only in the months and years following, when my parents would find me scribbling away at yet another volume of my journal, that they realized I was serious. Maybe they didn’t hold me accountable for my promise, but I did. They used to scold me that I was wasting my time writing so much and it was just a liu shui zhang, or ‘running water account’. Basically, it meant that my writing was as useless as a bank account where all the funds were drained, or something to that extent.
Nonetheless, I pursued until about a year ago, when I truly started to get behind on my writing. When I can’t find the time to write an entry each day (which has been the case for many years), I’ll keep bullet point notes to remind me of what to write about when I do have time to catch up. I used to be able to catch up on a weekly basis, which then evolved to a monthly basis and now… yearly? I still have tons of notes for all the days I’ve missed, though even those I’m behind on now. I’m not too worried though, since with the brilliance of the internet, I can just check my Facebook, blog, texts, and IMs from a particular day to piece together what happened. Not the best way to keep track of my life, but it works.
Have fun playing with friends or chill out writing alone?
My constant struggle with keeping a journal was that when I had a lot to write about, I had no time to write about it and when I had plenty of time to write, I had nothing to write about. After all, if you’re too busy out doing fun and interesting things, you won’t have time to stop and spend some time writing about it. Conversely, if you’ve got plenty of time sitting around, you aren’t really doing much exciting stuff to mention. So I always question the existence of my journal and whether or not I should maintain it. Even now, being so far behind, I fully intend to catch up on it eventually. But is it worth the time? Should I be doing something more notable instead? I used to write when I couldn’t really do anything else, like when I was on planes or in a waiting room, but that doesn’t happen much anymore, so most of my time I can spend doing something else. I’d like to live a storybook life, but I’d like to document it as well. So where is my balance? I don’t know if I’ll ever find one, but I will certainly always be striving towards one.
