Over the years I have tried different methods. Different diary systems. Even digital journals. I suppose this biweekly blog is a kind of journal, though it is always digital. Yet over time one thing keeps reasserting itself. I return to analog. Paper. Pencils. Writing by hand. And my handwriting is still not great! Sometimes it’s just a scribble.
There is something telling about that return. I don’t think it is nostalgia. It is certainly not resistance to technology. I have embraced computers since the first PCs of the 1980s. It is simply where thinking seems to settle most naturally for me—writing, not-writing, doodling, pausing.
For me, this has become a quiet spiritual discipline. Not because it is lofty or set apart, but precisely because it is ordinary. Spirituality, as I understand it, does not hover above everyday life. It runs through it. G*d is not elsewhere. G*d is present in ordinary things, if we have eyes to see.
A few years ago I discovered Field Notes notebooks. They are small—five and a half by three and a half inches (140 x 90 mm). They fit easily in a pocket, though I tend to keep a few together in a small wallet. These little books do not invite long entries. I write fragments, observations, and half-formed questions. The size matters. These small notebooks lower the bar. They remove the pressure of a large, empty page asking to be filled with something important.
The pencils matter too. I have grown fond of stubby metal Kaweco pencils and Rotring mechanical pencils. Both feel right in my hand. They have a little weight to them. They feel balanced. These are not trivial details, as they shape the experience. With pencil and paper, writing slows. Thought becomes more tentative rather than assertive.
These notebooks and pencils—pens, if you prefer—are not incidental. They are part of the practice. A notebook that feels good in the hand invites use. A pencil you enjoy holding asks to be picked up. Reflection begins there, before any words appear. This is where the practice becomes embodied. It is not just mental activity. It is physical, tactile, and ordinary.
If I speak of G*d here, it is in the sense that G*d is in the notebook. G*d is in the pencil. G*d is in the slow movement of graphite across paper. G*d is not an interruption, but a presence. G*d is not supernatural, but natural through and through. I have come to call it naturalistic panentheism: G*d is in all things, and all things are in G*d.
Most of what I write in my notebooks is not meant for anyone else. There is no audience to impress and no argument to win. I do not need to be consistent. A thought can remain unfinished. A contradiction can sit there without embarrassment and writing becomes thinking rather than communication.
In that thinking I recognize a modern version of what Socrates suggested when he spoke of the examined life. I don’t mean morbid self-scrutiny or introspective self-absorption. Writing privately, quietly, is a conversation with myself, for my eyes only. These jottings are a place where I can ask whether what I say, do, and value still makes sense.
John Dewey spoke of growth as the direction of human life. Growth is not perfection. It’s rather about becoming a better version of yourself. For me, journaling is part of the growing process. Sometimes it brings clarity. And to be honest, sometimes it does very little. Sometimes it exposes confusion rather than resolving it. That, too, is part of growth.
There is also something spiritually important about uncertainty. Writing in a little notebook does not always resolve things. Often it reveals how little I know. G*d is present there too: in not knowing and in questions that remain open. Uncertainty, held gently, becomes a form of trust.
There is a danger in all this. Reflection can turn harsh. Journaling can slip into quiet self-punishment, a kind of personal prosecution. I have known that temptation, but I give in less frequently these days. An examined life can become an unforgiving one if I am not careful. Sometimes the most important thing to examine is the tone of the examining voice itself.
Over time, some things written privately get shared. A thought moves from notebook to conversation. Thought matures in dialogue. and writing as a conversation with myself clarifies things. In time, articles and books get published. For me, blog posts live right on that edge: not quite private, yet not quite public.
I am not giving advice here, or recommending a method. I am simply describing what I keep returning to, and why it seems to matter to me. The examined life, as I understand it, is not a perfected life. It is a life attentive to presence. G*d in the pencil. G*d in the notebook. G*d in thinking. G*d in uncertainty. In other words, an examined life is a life that remains in conversation—first with itself and sometimes, if it feels ready, with others.
Take care and be well,
+Ab. Andy