For my analog experience, I kept a daily journal. I was excited about this assignment because I keep a journal for pleasure. However, I like to include photos and drawings in my journal. With a focus on aesthetics, I can admittedly lose focus on the purpose of an analog experience and shift my focus to perfectionism. For this assignment, I simply kept a journal of my day. I was interested to see how this experience differs from my usual journaling. What is different about this experience? What is the importance of the analog world, and why has it become a lost art?

During my experiment, I journaled at different times of the day. Sometimes to start my day, alongside my daily bowl of cereal, jotting down my schedule for the day. These entries usually consisted of my plans for the day, with a to-do list highlighted and checked off by the end of the day. Occasionally, I would have a mid-day journaling session, in between classes or even at work. My favorite of these entries are those at work, with the complaints of students questioning why the mailroom hasn’t processed their package yet, but I don’t know either. Most of the journal entries were at night with a reflection on my day. From this experiment, I’ve found that my favorite time to journal is at night. 

I sit at my desk, the dorm room dark aside from the lamp on my desk lighting up the blank pages of my journal. I let my thoughts flow while my hand freely illustrates the story of my day on the page. These are the entries with the most substance, each one shows a pattern. Different from the other entries, these go beyond the minuscule details of my day. These entries give more insight into who I am and how I feel. What made me happy that day, what is stressing me out, or what I’m looking forward to.

From this experience, I learned that while I still appreciate the craft behind the work in my other journal, I preferred the simplicity in this one. It’s therapeutic to remove yourself from the worries of your life and submerse yourself into your writing. Nowadays, the analog world is a lost art, no one keeps anything physical. While I understand the convenience of ranting about your day in your notes app from bed, writing in a journal is a different experience. An experience where you can learn more about who you are. When you do your favorite hobbies in analog, you gain a new love for them. Digital coloring is something I love to do, but there’s nothing like physical coloring. The art of ink from the marker filling in a blank canvas is something that you can’t replicate digitally. Doing things in analog is a deep and enriching experience, something that can be experienced more often if we unplug from the digital world. It is important to learn about who you are outside of the digital world. You have a newfound appreciation of the material world when you do things in analog.