Jack never approved of journaling

I have always been bemused by C.S. Lewis's oft-mentioned dislike of the practice of journaling. Despite so frequently denigrating it, he actually did it quite often, and some of his most powerful self-reflective works (A Grief Observed, for example) were technically composed by journaling. But seemed to view it as a sort of self-indulgence, a practice that encouraged excessive focus on the self.

I think he was so sensitive toward anything that so encouraged because he already recognized a strong tendency towards it in himself. One of the things I most admire about Lewis and have always worked to emulate was his ruthlessly accurate understanding of his own nature. But the unfortunate companion to the truly self-aware is often some degree of self-absorption. God knows it's certainly dogged me in my own efforts. It takes a great deal of time thinking about you to arrive at real personal understanding, and all that time is necessarily precluded from regard for other things, such as other people, or important efforts, or God. I believe it is in criticism of this that Lewis makes his stance-- he was not about to approve of anything that drove him even further into his failing.

I don't really agree; I think journaling is a very positive thing. I like that it encourages me to produce writing, which in turn improves my writing. I think it helps us work through problems, clarfying thoughts, developing points, and cope with our pain. I also believe that the achievement of true self-awareness is worth some time spent in excessive self-absportion; remembering to attend to the external can always be yet worked towards. And you'll notice that even though Lewis disapproved of the pursuit he did it anyway-- because it helped him clarify, develop, cope. We have some of his powerful personal works because he did it anyway.

But I know what he means. He was so ruthlessly fair, so clear-eyed for both the hard edge against and the compassion for the human plight. He articulated both "Who am I, that it is so wrong that I should suffer?" and "I am such that my suffering does signify." He was so full of that burning contradiction, so strange and yet so critical, of the everything and the nothing of our state, unafraid to at once accept the burden and claim the significance. He kept cutting, no matter how painful, until he exposed truth.

I don't always reach the same conclusions as Lewis. I don't always have the same experiences or viewpoints. But he speaks to me because he cuts himself with all the same blades I do.