A Conversation With My Daughter About Keeping A Diary

“Camilla: My new diary arrived in the mail today.

Gibbs: Before you start this diary, I’m going to lay down a few rules for how it can be kept.

Camilla: What are the rules?

Gibbs: First, your diary will not be a secret diary. I might pick it up and read it whenever I choose. Secret diaries encourage the worst and darkest sorts of thoughts a person has. Secret diaries are often filled with complaints, insults, and grievances with others. Why? A secret diary needs a reason to be secret, which means you will fill it with the sorts of thoughts you don’t want other people hearing, which either means confessing your own sins or the sins of others. A diary is no place to confess your sins, though, because a diary can’t forgive you. And it’s no place to catalogue the sins of others.”

-from my latest for CiRCE

Published by Joshua Gibbs

Sophist. De-activist. Hack. Avid indoorsman.

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