Archibald Campbell, in his diary, December 1

I’ve been thinking through today what I have I learned in eighty years of living life more or less on my own terms, in my own way, without following the rules.

. . .

I’ve lived long periods of deep friendship with myself, where I experienced inner peace, and long periods of chaos, of frustration and internal turmoil.

Life is about building a friendship with yourself, with your inner world. It is about seeking the elusive peace found there. That inner peace, or inner chaos, as the case may be, affects who we love for instance and who loves us. It determines the beauty we create.

Our lives can be divided into three contexts, three relationships: our relationship with others, our relationship with ourselves, with our inner world, and the territory where the two meet. Journaling is primarily about our relationship with ourselves, with creating and building a rich inner life.

Our creative life evolves out of our inner life, even if that is just the creation of a path, of an existence, but especially if it is the creation of unique work. Creative work arises out of the nexus of our inner life and our life with others. It is a manifestation of our inner beauty, and our inner turmoil, our inner chaos, our inner organization and ability to focus, our ability to manifest a love for some thing, some creative work, or some other person or persons.

Our surface life, our life in the world of human interaction, of making a living, our life of competition with others, of status seeking, of the accumulation of material goods and financial security or financial success, develops one way if we need the approbation, the confirmation by others of our worth as human beings, and another if we already have that confirmation through our relationship with our inner world, from our friendship with our self. Creativity, somewhat paradoxically, is enhanced by friction between the two. By the need for recognition. Would Picasso paint if he knew no one would ever see it? I think not. I think he had an axe to grind. I think he needed, for some reason, to tell us he could see things we couldn’t. He needed to tell us that there were profound things lurking in his dreamworld. And he was probably right about that. 

While journaling has a role to play in all aspects of our lives, it is particularly valuable and useful in understanding our inner world, in building our relationship with ourselves, in understanding who we are and what we want out of life. It helps us figure out who we are. Through journaling we understand the hidden currents that underly our lives, the myths that guide us without our realizing it. How do you nurture your inner peace? How do you reach an understanding of the role of money in your life? How do you reach a clear understanding of what you want out of life? What sacrifices – because everything sacred requires a sacrifice – do you need to make to achieve the dream you have for your life? If your time on this planet is short, and precious, in a sense then it is sacred or should be treated as such.

Ultimately, building a friendship with oneself is the profound accomplishment of a human life. Building a clear understanding of what one wants out of this rare and precious gift we’ve been somehow given – life, an opportunity to experience the beauty of this planet, to experience the fruits of human imagination – music, art, novels, poetry, science – is the path to building that friendship with oneself.

If life was infinite, then that understanding, that creation of a rich inner life, that friendship with your inner self would be perhaps less important, less crucial, less urgent. If life was infinite, expending large portions of it on the trivial, on drama, on the things that upset you, on the accumulation of stuff you don’t need in order to get recognition of your value by others, would be less of a tragedy. But life isn’t infinite.

. . .

So the question is: would you live your life differently if your principal objective was to build a deep friendship with yourself, with your inner world. If so, different in what way?