Motivations Everywhere This journal is from Madeline's growing collection of journals at Madeline's YesRoom (http://www.yesroom.com). In addition to more journals, you can find erotic stories and softcore site reviews at Madeline's YesRoom. Enjoy! ********************** Motivations Everywhere by Madeline 2 September 2000 This journal may be reposted to usenet and the web under the following conditions: (1) No fee is charged to view the journal, (2) a link to Madeline's YesRoom (http://www.yesroom.com) is included, (3) Madeline is e-mailed at madeline@yesroom.com informing her of the repost, and (4) the text is not altered, including this copyright notice. Thanks! -- Madeline ********************** I last kept a real journal in high school. I wrote it by hand in an oversized, lined notebook with a marbled green cover. I have occasionally wandered through the writings in it, usually while packing or unpacking from a move. I am always struck by the intensity of my emotions, whether joy or anger or frustration or exhaustion. Teenage angst indeed. In college, e-mail was my journal. I corresponded with a surprisingly large number of people, on subjects ranging from sex to economics. Some of my correspondents are still friends. Others are former lovers. One is my husband. Others I have lost touch with or have forgotten. And some are separated from me by gulfs of misunderstanding. I look back now on this voluminous correspondence from college and wonder how I had time to go to class. Both my paper journal and the e-mail equivalent are the best records of my history that I have. They are superior to my memories, being that they are more reliable and richer in detail. More than any other source, they give me a complete image of what my life was like and who I was as a person at the time. They are untainted by later events. They are exquisite in their everyday detail. The e-mail journal, however, has one particular advantage over my earlier, paper journal. My e-mails provide a fuller picture of myself because they reveal my life through my interactions with others. They show how my inner life meshed with my outer life, which of my private thoughts gave rise to public action. Perhaps my "what you see is what you get" attitude these days is a result of those voluminous e-mail correspondences. It is because of this history of journal writing that I particularly look forward to writing a journal for YesRoom. I will enjoy learning about myself through writing. I will enjoy showing my readers a more personal, real side of myself. I will enjoy learning about myself in later years by re-reading these journals. There is so much that we can learn about ourselves by simply turning the searchlight of our minds inwards, by quietly contemplating who we are and who we would like to be. Without such contemplation, we are in danger of being dragged along by the currents in our lives: our jobs, family, friends. We are in danger of being led by our lives rather than leading them. I fear that I have not done enough contemplation in the past few years. I know that I am more thoughtful about my path in life than most. But that is not enough. So I hope you can see the particular pleasure and delight that my expedition into journal-writing offers me. It will allow me to, as I am doing tonight, slow down, to quietly ponder my own thoughts. And I take particular pleasure and delight in sharing this work with you, as your listening ear will keep me honest. I hope that you will enjoy what is to come as much as I will enjoy writing it. -- Madeline ********************** Madeline madeline@yesroom.com Madeline's YesRoom http://www.yesroom.com Madeline's YesRoom offers high-quality erotic stories, Madeline's journals, softcore site reviews, erotic penpals, and chat. Updated daily!