Post No. 015 : Arthur's Email : 5775.04.12 : Analysis III

Journaling can be a counterweight to rambling. There are other ways than journaling to combat rambling. Speaking out one's thoughts with a friend who is willing to listen and give feedback is perhaps the best way. When a friend like that is not available, the journal is your friend. Write out your thoughts in your journal. Then review what you wrote. Listen to yourself, as Arthur says.

If someone were preparing a meal for a potential business client, should he serve the client what he made without tasting it himself? How much business will a cafe have if food is cooked, baked, and broiled, and drinks are mixed, there according to no plan? Would you eat in a restaurant that doesn't have a menu, and where the waiting staff serves without taking your order first?

A rambling man has no one to listen to him because he didn't take stock, neither of what he wanted to say or of whom his audience is. The journaling man has at least a chance of gaining the ear of others because what he says is sweet to his own ears.

Arthur has said:
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The reason many of us do not know what to write has to do with all of the myths about writing in a journal.  It's important to remember that there are no rules.  There are no rules which say we need to:

1. Write at a certain time of day
2. Start on page 1
3. Write from front to back
4. Say something seemingly meaningful
5. Write every day
6. Write from a journaling prompt
7. Etc, etc, etc

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That being said, that there are no rules, I cannot give you a formula of how to use journaling to avoid rambling. Experience shows, however, that when someone writes, their writing improves. There are techniques to journaling, as a future post, with pictures of Arthur's own journal writings, will illustrate. But often those techniques develop from writing, not vice versa. The trick is to open the journal, uncap the pen, and touch the nib to the paper.

Note: I think great care must be exercised before labeling someone a "rambling man". A sure measure of a bore is someone who consistently finds others unworthy of being heard out. Many times the one who points out a flaw in his fellow is really revealing his own shortcoming.