NOTES TO ONESELF

American novelist Jack London kept a notebook while living in a temporary winter shelter in Yukon, Canada during the 1890s gold rush. He’d sleep with his notebook, eat with it, and use it to capture his wayward thoughts; all of which, about a powerful dog named Buck stolen from his home in California and sold into service as a sled dog in Alaska. Journaling is the writers’ sketchbook, and many great writers, such as Susan Sontag, Oscar Wilde, Marcus Aurelius, and Virginia Woolf tended to their notebooks much like many today tend to a phone, with devout attention. Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca indulged in note-taking in the evenings, saying, “I examine my entire day and go back over what I’ve done and said, finding that the sleep which follows this self-examination” was especially sweet.