\chapter{Journaling}

Yes, yes yes...  I know that I have a item I was going to add to this
and a whole thing about, ``Who are we?'' which I am avoiding writing.

I get the desire to write the previous thing about sales first, because
that was very much the topic of what was on our mind, when we were 
sitting down to get something down here.  

This about journaling wasn't really on our mind, it's just we
don't feel inspired to write directly about who we are right now.

Maybe we'll totally skip that.  Because you know, it's not something
that we like to really consider directly because it always feels not
right.  

So, let's talk about journaling, rather than talking about ourselves
directly.  

I don't really want to fully dive into this, I have started a project 
already that kind of has sat sadly for...  Months, maybe over a year, 
maybe even over 2 years.

I want to sort of cover a few different things with journaling:

\begin{itemize}
    \item{Why Journal?}
    \begin{itemize}[nosep]
        \item{Self Communication}
        \item{Getting Things Done}
        \item{Understanding Self}
        \item{Understanding World}
    \end{itemize}
    \item{How we journal}
    \begin{itemize}[nosep]
        \item{Bullet Journal}
        \item{Just Writing}
        \item{Script Writing}
    \end{itemize}
\end{itemize}

Dang, that was a longer list than I thought it would be, so let's get
started

\section{Why Journal?}

This is something that honestly I'm sure there are at least as many 
reasons as there are people journaling.  Which?  Um, that sort of seems
a bit odd, as what I'm talking about here is probably some fairly generic
reasons.

These are reasons that I have for why I try to journal (and sometimes
actually succeed at it).  They aren't really the only reason's, but we
have to start somewhere, and we have to not overwhelm ourselves and our
gentle (or not so gentle) readers.  

\subsection{Self Communication}

This well...  Self?  Maybe that's hitting us a bit weird...  Selves?  
System?  Well maybe System is better then.\todo{Make this better with 
more direct use of something along the lines of system.}

This will probably (hopefully) get edited, but I don't want to go back
and do that right now...  Remember, ``This will be terrible,'' from the
introduction.  It's not our goal with the thing, it is more an invitation
for ourselves to be accepting as we are capable of, of it not being 
perfect.  Especially for it not to be perfect as we are working on it.

So...  {\it System Communication}, then.  We use journaling for system
communication, to have ourselves better able to understand what's going
on with the system as a whole.\todo{Something about Simply Plural and 
Discipline App}

This ends up coming out in a few different ways, and more details about
how this comes out in the different ways I've listed as ``How we 
journal.''

The thing we're noticing is that actually a lot of the why and the
how end up interacting.  We were thinking that the ``Bullet Journal,''
type format didn't have to do with much more than getting things done.

And with looking at this, even the just getting things done of the 
``Bullet Journal'' format (Can we call it BJ?  Let's at least for
now.)\todo{Is BJ OK?} at least for us, involves system communication.

Why do I say that?  Well, I could write something down as Jigme that
I want to get done, and then Moddy shows up, but wasn't aware of that
and they can look at that, and go ahead and get it done.  

The other aspects felt a lot more like they were directly related to 
the ``internal communication'' aspect, as that is pretty much the direct
purpose of them.  

So, what about getting things done?

\subsection{Getting Things Done}

This feels all of a sudden what I said about how the ``just writing,'' 
and ``script writing,'' are basically about just internal communication
that they have to be also connected with the getting things done aspect
as well.

The way they help with that may actually come up further down the way,
but basically because they are about the communication, they can help
with understanding as to what needs to be done.

So, wait, we were talking about why?  I guess that means I really 
need to talk about the executive function issues.\todo{yep this is a 
chapter too.}

It easily can take 3 days to do a single load of laundry with just
the general inability to remember that is what is going on (it's not
right in front of us, and sometimes the person fronting, is not the
person who put the laundry in), and often when remembering, promptly
getting interrupted by things outside of our system (people, phone,
computer, dog, et cetera).

Properly noting this stuff can be a huge help in cutting that time to
more like reasonable levels.

Does it happen?  Rarely, but hey a system can dream can't they?  

What about the other things that I've got in that lovely list up
there $\uparrow$ (and for me over there $\rightarrow$ (yes I just 
spent several minutes getting the arrows to show up acceptably)),
maybe let's look at them?

\subsection{Understanding Self}

OK, before I go too far with this, I feel that in our case, we're needing
to split this into the self and the system, so let's do that.

Well, maybe a bit about this before going to that.  It might seem obvious
now that this makes sense, but when I wrote the list above, it really
did not.  I didn't really see that this was different, but in writing, 
found that it really is.  

It's really very difficult to express what's going on in a way that 
actually fully expresses this.  As I type a single word, there's like
five different sentences going on that may or may not shift what's 
happening with the greater thought pattern.

Every so often enough of what's happening has a, ``click'' type moment
where something comes up that needs to be noted.  Sometimes that ends 
up working out, other times it doesn't.

It can be easier to get some of these thoughts better to come out
when working with a physical medium like a pen and paper (how I like
to have my journals when I'm managing that), than it is when trying 
to express stuff on the computer.  

So, that's what happened to bring this to realising that this is actually
important to pull into a more clear that the individual self, and the 
system are connected, but not the same.

\subsubsection{Understanding the Individual}

This would be something which figuring out how certain patterns with
certain members of the system are there.  

This seems like it may have been a significant breakdown in counselling 
when we've gone through it, as the counsellor (and ourselves) lacked the 
understanding that talking to Jigme about something that happened when 
Little One was fronting, can be next to useless.  

Until Jigme understands Little One, it is like me trying to explain 
why you went into do the thing you did.  And, if you really want to
understand, no matter how much Jigme understands about what Little
One did, they can't explain as well as Little One can themselves.  

So, getting what Little One, or Jigme, or Samantha to understand what
they are going through, and why they are doing the things they are
doing, is very much a step in getting stuff so that the system 
as a whole better understands what's going on.  

Which is very much a place to transition to more specifically speaking
about understanding the system.

\subsubsection{Understanding the System}

We're taking a break right now, will get back to you shortly, need to
step away a bit.  

Ah, we're back...  That helped.  Now, I got into some of what I'm talking
about how figuring out how an individual member of the system helps with
understanding the system as a whole, but that sort of is not the whole
thing about understanding the system.

Like it is a lot different to understand how every individual in a 
classroom is behaving, than it is to understand how the classroom as 
a whole is working.  It's a bit of a difference between considering 
things from a psychological versus a group psychology or sociology 
view.

I'm not sure I can wholely say more about it than that without trying
to do it, and ending up going through a long rambling discussion that
quite possibly doesn't even get any further along than I already have.  

Let's move to the next thing about understanding the world.

\subsubsection{Understanding the World}

This is more a matter (at least for me), about understanding how I'm 
fitting in the world, but it can be more general in just understanding
the dynamics of the world.  

In the ``Are you going to sell this?'' chapter, I talked a bit about how 
that works out, around the idea of collectivism versus individualism, 
and about capitalism.  I didn't go into detail about how I got there,
or really in any level of detail about the topics, but just enough
to maybe start to think about those topics yourself (if you have
not already been).

So, it does end up being a somewhat useful thing in doing that, and
any of these tools which I'm about to go into can be part of that.  

\section{How We Journal}

This will have to wait until some other time...

I guess it's a fairly simple thing, but I was just done whenever I 
paused there.  So, there's basically three different ways that I do my
journaling.  Doing the Bullet Journal (BulJo?  I think that might be a 
form used to refer to it, but ah not really sure?)\todo{ah Bujo, that's 
actually official}, then just writing portions out, and writing 
scripts.  

This certainly won't go into the full details of any of these methods,
just give a bit about how I do them, and how they kind of address the 
why above.  

\subsection{Bullet Journal\textsuperscript{\tiny®} 
(Bujo\textsuperscript{\tiny®})}

Bujo\textsuperscript{\tiny®}, was created by Ryder Carroll, to help deal 
with his ADHD, (or maybe to deal with his egotism, and not in a good 
way), technically it's not an open system, but also technically there's 
a lot of information publicly available officially.  It's not clear 
really what the status of the trademark, and his enforcing of it is, if 
he is enforcing it, and finds I dared to mention his product and mention 
that I use it, well I guess this section will change ...  It's why I 
decided to create my series on journaling (that never got very far).

So, he uses a system that works for him.  He's making money off that 
system, and as he's trademarked it, no one can use the name in anything
which would be considered to be a commercial product.  

I've run into this attitude with other systems meant to help people. 
Someone ends up making money from it, and also preventing the spread 
of it in a ``legal'' way, as they somehow consider that it's so important
that it be protected.

I've had very strange issues with the use of 
WordPress\textsuperscript{\tiny®}, because even though what I was doing 
was saying, ``we are using this product,'' you can't actually say that 
(depends on who it is to some extent), if what you are doing is 
considered commercial.\todo{What is commercial?}

Anyway, the system (which is trademarked not patented, it can't really 
be), is a decent system, but it's not really open.  

And, apparently he doesn't respect the IP of other people...  

It really feels like a huge faff that he's making a decent amount of 
money from, just get yourself a blank notebook, do what you can, and
check out even his videos, or other instruction.  

It's a great system for getting stuff done.  But really it comes down
to, ``keep it simple,'' ``make it your own.''

Yes, he's got some specifics.  But those specifics are basically, a
20 minute video worth, or a single double sided A4/Letter paper to
explain enough to take it into something that you can take further.

So, let's move to something that I'm more comfortable talking as a
way I'm doing stuff (because I don't have any term associated with 
it that I am aware is considered proprietary).

\subsection{Just Writing}

This isn't really anything particular, though probably sort of is.

There is a concept called ``free writing''\todo{Get Wikipedia Reference 
here.} where a person writes continuously for 15 minutes, or some other 
period of time, with the pen never stopping.  

While I've tried to do that, I've never found that it was anything
other than just a huge stressful ball of anxiety, because I kept,
``screwing up'' how I was doing this.

For me, this is to just write and feel free to stop and thing or
whatever whenever you want.  

You may sit down with something on your mind.  You may be writing
about your day (where I kind of started with this), or you may write
about some topic, or whatever.  

The point for this for me, is it really doesn't have rules, except
for what you set out when you do it that particular time.  And 
really those rules are mostly, ``why am I sitting down to do this?''

I have found that this isn't that common for me any more, but I
feel it's actually a good place to start.  Pick up a small notebook,
and just have it so you can fill it up with whatever you want.

You can do this as a daily practice, do it multiple times a day,
do it just whenever you think about it.  

So, what about the other Script Writing thing?

\subsection{Script Writing}

This is a new thing that I've started to do.  I started first with
doing this in a sketchbook, and sometimes do stuff similar to what
I did still.  

Essentially this is something where we create document of an internal
dialogue, or maybe multiple parts talking, and trying to keep track of
who is saying what in that dialogue.  

I have started to use the Stage document class, in \LaTeX, to write
some of these scripts.

The purpose and format are a bit related.  For me, this is one
of the system mapping tools that I use.  The specific tool that I
use isn't as important as finding something that works.  The writing 
in a sketchbook, or notebook, or whatever does work, and there is 
nothing wrong with doing that, but I find that it also is a way that I
end up with something that ends up being a bit of a scribble, that I
don't really know what is said.

Which...  Leads me to another how that I hadn't thought about...

Just scribbling.

\subsection{Just Scribbling}

This probably isn't quite the thing here.  I guess this is a bit about
why I really like to do some of this in a physical, open format journal.

I haven't found a way on the computer that I can quickly switch between
writing a text thing that ends up being decently formatted, to being able
to throw a sketch, or formula in (well maybe a formula as I can do 
something like):

\begin{figure}[htb]
$$\sum_{n=1}^{\infty} {n\over{n^2}}$$
\caption{I really have no idea what this ends up being.}
\end{figure}\todo{Find out
what this ends up summing to.}

(yes I looked up how to do that), in \LaTeX.

But I can easily switch when I'm using a pen/pencil on paper, to 
whatever format I want, and it doesn't require any kind of mode
switching or loading anything up, it just happens.  

So I could just throw something down that is very much just a
scribble, a ``ball of anxiety,'' and just sort of do that, or
do a sketch of an idea I'm trying to explain, or whatever.  

\section{Conclusion (sort of)}

Well, that's been a heck of a lot, that I really did not expect
so I want to say that this actually was a little weird to write 
up as a lot of the breaks were because things were bringing stuff
up, so yeah, take breaks, and enjoy your stuff.  

I don't think this vaguely covers what I'd like to, but it
certainly is a thing, that I can work with.

I'd really love to write more about this whole topic, and probably
will, but right now, this is done.  If you want to journal, just do
it.  Don't spend your time trying to find the right way to do it,
don't spend your time finding the right journal to do it in.  Just
do it.

If you find what you are doing, then change it.  Or you might decide
just to stop, or set it aside and not worry about it.  

Sure you'll get ideas from various sources.  They are great, but
don't let them start to get in the way of just doing the thing.

And yes, that's a lot easier said than done for a lot of people,
including ourselves in the Datse Collective.  