Why do I journal

And then I felt nostalgic. The fire was gently jumping through the logs, occasionally altered by the breeze. A chorus of voices surrounded my ears, slowly pulling my lips into a smile that matched the rhythm of the guitar playing. I gazed around, realizing how all the faces had been entirely unknown to each other five days ago, but now they were laughing together around the campfire. There were approximately thirty of them, and somehow, flashbacks of my younger self began to emerge. I moved away from the heat and gazed upwards. There, the lights from our amazing mathematical universe's clusters rested. Memories started to flood back.

I haven't lived a long life yet. Well, relatively. I'm currently somewhere between fifteen and sixteen, where sleep hours tend to decay, and the mind tends to fly faster. Fifteen and a half years technically means a lot to one's birth lottery ticket, but it has been a firework to me, illuminating the sky yet leaving nothing behind. I can only remember two things from my first and second grade in a Chinese public school: there were approximately thirty people, and I successfully protected an egg from falling down a three-floor building. None of them have much weight in my memory though. I only remember three people from the thirty people crowd, and I knew I was going to save the egg.

What is the point of describing unimportant things that happened almost ten years ago? This is a blog post on a public website, not a place for you (me) to show off your saving-egg skills! Well, think back to the nostalgic part. When people say they miss the old and relaxing times. They don't really know what exactly do they miss. It took me three whole minutes sitting there to come up with two things I'm more than ninety percent confident happened. If you think this is weird, or I simply had a bad memory - try it. Try to remember what you ate for breakfast yesterday, or the day before yesterday. For some people, this is an easy thing to recall. But for another group including me, it is almost impossible.

I gazed upon the night sky again. There, the stars seem scattered and faint. Was my journey so far scattered like this? Wait, why am I starting to question the meaning of my life? I'm still an 15 years old teenager! There would be no answer to this question yet, and it is up to me to write them down!

Yes! Write! Journaling sounds like the perfect idea! All of a sudden, the neurons in my brain clicked - journaling my daily thinking and ideas down will solve the issue, but at the same time add more value to the thinking and ideas themselves. Commit to something greater than yourself. This is my current belief, and thus here I am, typing them down word by word.

But why exactly do I believe that journal could help? First of all, the entire sense that "journaling might help" came from a click moment. This moment was not derived from reasoning, but instead emerge out of nowhere. Throughout the course of history, men had made an infinite number of decisions, but only an minuscule portion resulted from careful planning and decision. The rests are similar to a gut feeling or click moment. Therefore, humans love to apply reasoning after the decision had been made, which will make it sound rational. In the end, who doesn't want to be regarded as a rationale being? Alright, enough talks, here are some reasoning I applied to my decision afterward.

First, having a personal blog or journal is cool. When I'm typing these words down, I can feel a part of me imagining how people would react after reading this. Wow! How can a fifteen years old boy think so much! This is an honest feeling without derived reasoning. But still, it is a stupid reason if it stands by itself, and instead people will think Wow! How can a fifteen years old boy show off so much!

Second, English has been my second language, so writing more in English is beneficial to my own skills. Not much to elaborate on this one.

Now comes the most weighted reason in my head. There are a lot of times, a lot of them, when I felt lonely and unclear of the road ahead. A straightforward example for me is high school - do I want to learn about things which interest me, or do I want to be confined to an educational system and living up to others' simulations? At first, this question might sound very rebellious, and that's what I thought. However, there's no point to describe the struggle here, and I might find a solution which embrace the good sides of both. Whenever I face such internal struggles, I desperately want to find someone who understands me, and the journaled me seems like a good choice. It is costless, efficient, while at the same time understands me the best. I can always look back to see how my past self respond to forks in the road, and be grateful of how I've grown since then. My journal is a friend who knows me the best.

There is still one question I left unanswered: why am I putting all these journals on my personal website, is the aim really to show off? I am truly grateful of how I've grown consistently, and a critical part which contributed to my better understanding of myself is other people's blog and journals. They have one thing in common - something they pursue in their life, and they have walked further than I have. Therefore, I am putting all the blogs and journals here because I want readers such as my younger self to benefit, even tiny improvements count! My past self does not have to be a friend only to me, but to whoever is reading the post.

The air is turning colder, so I stood up and started walking toward the campus. The stars above my eyes seemed to resonate with me. They started forming clusters with their various aged lights coming from far beyond, as if different memories linked together, illuminating the path forward of me. Then, a comet broke the silence, it strokes through our top and left no trace like a firework. This is a greeting from my previous self.

The comet is real.