One Year With My Diary

• Written by Mossy

I wrote a diary entry a day for a whole year. Here’s what I learnt, what I gained, all the joys and all the pains

Also, here’s a simple graph comparing the word count of each day:

Statistics

First of all, the numbers:

What I learnt

It’s hard to be honest with yourself. Even when writing for your eyes only, it’s tempting to omit certain events or thoughts of yours whilst worrying about how they might reflect on you in future. It took me a good while to overcome this mental block, and even if there are now some slightly uncomfortable truths contained within the diary, it beats lying to myself and dramatically reducing the whole project’s worth

Life moves pretty fast and, to continue the Ferris Bueller quote, if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. Taking time to archive this year of mine has given me a better sense of how long each 24 hour slice of my life really is: long enough for a hundred different things to happen, and simultaneously not long at all. Sometimes, I was doing too much living to find time to write, and I’d end up playing catch-up

What I gained

A better memory of days past. The knowledge that I’d eventually need to recount all my adventures had me paying a slight bit better attention to their details. As the year went on, I observed an increase in the amount of days whose details I could easily recall

An augmented ability to see the art in the everyday. Some entries felt more magical than autobiographical; by using different framing devices or discussing overarching themes, I could pull a fable from some of my favourite days. I know well the times where I learnt a particularly dramatic lesson, or when I woke up and fell asleep to the same song, or where I felt like a character in a movie (comedy, tragedy, or romance)

Tips

Obsidian is an excellent note-taking program with support for a button to automatically create a daily note. I used the app in lieu of a physical journal, for it afforded me the luxury of writing my diary anywhere I be. It also allowed me to search through my database of dates, have multiple backups, and to calculate the statistics listed previously

You should feel free to include any song lyrics, movie quotes, or book excerpts that you find interesting. Your thoughts will naturally include a lot of other people’s thoughts; not every word written has to come from your pen (or keyboard)

Quotes

My diary is a pretty personal possession of mine, so forgive me for only including vignettes verbatim, but these should give you an idea of what I’d be writing day-to-day

31-12-2024

I found a pocket dictionary, so we randomly started comparing pairs of words, finding that we liked “fluorescent” over “optical”, and “gabble” over “fluorescent”

I’ll probably still remember all the major events of this year going forwards, but I reckon that my record of the silly business my friends and I got up to day-to-day is what I’ll value most looking back

22-06-2025

Maybe because he’s been reading and quoting The Myth Of Sisyphus recently, but I’ve felt a particular affinity for that king of yore as of late: both in my continued struggle to release my next video, and in my search for someone to share the beauties of this life with. At least for one night though, surrounded by a garden of flowers and a warm summer breeze, I had that person on the other end of my aux cord

Up to a point, my diary does contain a decent bit of yearning, because ultimately I am a romantic and my brain will engage in all forms of fanciful antics when given a blank canvas

10-07-2025

The grove we emerged into was like nothing I had ever seen before. Verdant forest all around, a clear blue sky overhead. Tributaries made islands of green, homes for the many birds that flew about us all day. We claimed a peninsula for ourselves, and I frolicked my heart out up and down our gift of a spot

My biggest achievements this year were finding the person I wanted to share everything beautiful in my life with, and finding chances to share in a bunch of different beauties with him and all my friends. This diary can attest to how happy both made me

Conclusion

Am I going to continue making daily entries going forwards? No! I like having a comprehensive record, but I don’t really have the energy to do the recording necessary. I’ll probably just resort to recounting only the most memorable of days, and that has the added benefit of making the diary easier to sort through. At a certain point, I found that being both historian and historical figure got in the way of each other, and that I’d rather live a day than remember it

I’m still really glad that I undertook this challenge though! I’ve had some fun, discovered some things about myself, and made something I’m sure I’ll value for quite a while to come

Discuss this post on the Fediverse: https://mastodon.mossy.page/@mossy/115334579177559532