The benefits of journalling

From cyprus-mail.com

What do Leonardo da Vinci, Mark Twain, Aristotle Onassis, Richard Branson, George Lucas, and Oprah Winfrey have in common? Each kept a journal or diary to record their experiences, thoughts, or feelings, with some even using illustrations to convey emotions and jot down ideas.

As journalling continues to expand in popularity, more and more individuals recognise them as a powerful tool to manage and maintain one’s mental health, to reflect on the person they used to be and how they have evolved, personally and professionally. Contemporary journals allow individuals to track their emotional and intellectual progress over time.

As the world’s reliance on technology increases, there are moments when less technology makes it possible to accomplish more. To assist them manage this hyperconnected planet, they employ a non-digital solution in the form of a simple notebook or journal.

Greece’s larger-than-life shipping mogul Aristotle Onassis frequently instructed individuals in his inner circle to carry a notepad and write down everything. “When you have an idea, write it down. When you meet someone new, write down everything you know about them. That way you will know how much time they are worth,” he explained.

Although Onassis’ journalling allowed him to reflect on and better understand his thoughts and feelings, it also served as a tool to enhance his relationship with time, increasing his overall productivity.

According to Onassis, the act of writing compels one to act. “If you do not write it down, you will forget it,” he said. “That is a million dollar lesson they don’t teach you in business school.”

Only a small percentage of billionaires today have built tremendously successful companies that have significantly impacted the world but almost all of them share a set of habits such as getting up early, being healthy, practising discipline, reading, and maintaining a journal.

In his autobiography, Richard Branson said his most important item is a school notebook, which can be purchased from any stationery shop on any high street in the United Kingdom. “I carry this everywhere and write down all the comments that are made to me by Virgin staff and everyone else I meet,” he said. “The discipline of writing everything down assures that I have carefully listened to everyone.”

Winfrey has kept a handwritten journal since she was 15, “which is a testament to growth and grace that I have come so far.

“I started using journals to express my gratitude and watched my blessings multiply,” she said. “What you focus on, ultimately expands.”

While Onassis, Branson, and Winfrey are just a few examples of how journalling enabled them to tap into their deepest reservoirs of life, the process also enabled them to map out their own solutions.

As individuals, we have a habit of turning to other sources for answers whenever we need them, which trains us not to trust our own judgement. Although having mentors and teachers is beneficial, we also need to be able rely on ourselves.

On a personal level, journalling is a fantastic tool for exploring and working through trust issues. Writing down one’s thoughts and feelings allows for a more in-depth understanding of self and relationships. Journalling can also aid in the identification of patterns, triggers, and behaviours that may be leading to trust issues.

Journalling has been practised throughout history, and da Vinci was no exception. His writings are full of novel scientific observations, theories, and hypotheses, the majority of which would be confirmed and validated by independent researchers over the next centuries. In fact, the seeds of Western science were sown during the Italian Renaissance, and no one sowed more of those seeds than Leonardo da Vinci.

Twain, the father of American literature, also carried notebooks loaded with observations of individuals he encountered, thoughts on religion and politics, as well as drawings and sketches of what he observed in his travels, which eventually served as plots for his books and ideas for his inventions.

Last but not least, filmmaker Lucas is notorious for always having a pocket notebook with him, where the ideas, words, and plot angles for his highly successful Star Wars and Indiana Jones film franchises are said to have originated.

From scientists to artists, entrepreneurs to authors, and everyone in between, keeping a journal can be an essential self-care practice and one of the greatest secrets to reflect the purpose of one’s soul. According to Benjamin Franklin, “writing is the beginning of all wealth.”

https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/10/11/journalling-benefits/

UK: Patrick Vallance’s pandemic diary reveals Government’s maddening disregard for science

From telegraph.co.uk

The former chief scientist’s journal critiques politicians’ ‘cherry picking’ of advice and lashes out at ‘bullish, bipolar Boris’ 

“Keep a diary and someday it will keep you”, Mae West the American actress, is said to have quipped.

For Sir Patrick Vallance that day has arrived, as it emerged that the Government’s former chief scientific adviser was quietly writing a journal during the pandemic, a copy of which has now been handed to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry.

Early excerpts suggest it will make for deeply uncomfortable – if scintillating – reading, with the phrase “quite extraordinary” appearing frequently in relation to dubious government decisions.

One can only imagine the eye-roll that accompanied the sentence: “Some person has completely rewritten the science advice!”

“They’ve just cherry picked,” he grumbled. “Quite extraordinary.”

Sir Patrick was referring to the two-metre rule, which in the summer of 2020 was causing a headache for Number 10.

The excerpts seen so far of Sir Patrick's pandemic diary paint a picture of discord and capriciousness within Government CREDIT: Tolga Akmen/PA Wire

On the one hand, politicians – and arguably the public – wanted good, simple scientific advice that they could follow and would help to protect them from coronavirus.

But, the science on social distancing was vague and hugely dependent on circumstances.

Sage reports on the issue were complex, warning that it mattered whether you were outdoors or indoors, whether you were masked, whether you were facing someone and for how long.

At background briefings that summer, Sir Patrick made this clear, telling science journalists the two-metre rule was “not a rule from a scientific perspective” and advising that passing close to someone on the street for a second was an “absolutely negligible risk”.

“The risk can come down if, for example, instead of being face-to-face, you’re side-by-side or you’re back-to-back,” he said.

“It can be reduced by things like ventilation, it can be helped by being outdoors, it can be reduced if you’re wearing a face covering, or putting the screen up and so there’s all sorts of things you can do to reduce that.”

But those briefings were strictly off the record, and although journalists could hint at some of the discord happening behind the scenes, we were banned from being too explicit for fear of losing access.

Initially, the Government had accepted some of the nuance surrounding social distancing.

At the beginning of March 2020, the Department of Health released guidance warning that coronavirus could be spread when people have “close, sustained contact”, which they said meant “spending more than 15 minutes or longer within two metres of an infected person”.

But by late June, all ambiguity was gone and the two-metre rule was firmly and irrevocably in place.

Across the country, businesses stuck fussy markers on their shop floors to keep people apart. Even supermarkets insisted that customers queuing outdoors observed the sanction.

The rule itself had little to do with coronavirus, dating back to experiments by the Harvard scientist William Wells, who was looking at the contagiousness of tuberculosis in the 1930s.

Wells found that viruses causing respiratory infections are spread by different-sized droplets expelled by coughs and sneezes. Just one single droplet can be enough to carry an infectious dose and later research demonstrated the distances droplets can travel.

All well and good, but there was little evidence that it could be directly applied to coronavirus, a point that scientists were quite clear about. Even the World Health Organisation had advised that one metre was likely to be sufficient.

What is clear from Sir Patrick’s diary entries is that nobody was reading the science, let alone following it, as was consistently claimed by Downing Street.

For the rest of the country, it might be comforting to know that while we were shouting at the television, officials were feeling the same frustration with the Government.

But for Downing Street, this will no doubt feel like a betrayal, and one they did not see coming.

After all, you have to get behind someone before you can stab them in the back, and Sir Patrick always seemed so stoically on message.

Now we find he secretly despaired of “flip-flopping, inconsistent, bullish, bipolar Boris”.

Quite extraordinary.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/03/patrick-vallance-diary-journal-coronavirus-covid-lockdown/

Caught in a country at war: remembrances of Yom Kippur in Israel, 1973

From studlife.com

By Michael L Millenson

In mid-August 1973, I and a handful of other Washington University students began our Junior Year abroad program at Hebrew University in Jerusalem with two months of language classes (Ulpan). This preceded the regular academic year, set to start in mid-October after the Jewish holidays. Still, my Hebrew remained fairly rudimentary.

At that time, I lived in dorms in an out-of-the-way, working-class neighbourhood called Kiryat Yovel. For Yom Kippur, traditionally spent in fasting and prayer, I travelled to the main campus to attend services with friends. The dorms were close to the English-speaking Conservative movement’s seminary. 

When I arrived in Israel, I began keeping a diary. Below is my lightly edited record of a traumatic period in Israel’s history that began with the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War on Oct. 6, 1973, and whose “social, political, economic and psychological effects,” in the words of Israeli political scientist Susan Hattis Rolef, are still being felt.

Saturday, Oct. 6, 1973. Yom Kippur

 I leave services and go back to the dorms for a nap. At two o’clock in the afternoon, when I am half asleep, I hear the wailing sound of an air-raid siren. I sit up and listen. At 2:10, the siren wails again. There is running in the halls, and people are playing their radios very loudly. I check the location of my pants and resolve to put them on quickly. A while later, an “all-clear” sounds. I make a mental note to find out what the fuss was all about.

Courtesy of Michael Millenson

[Note: I had no clue that the country, including the radio, goes completely silent during Yom Kippur and that the sirens signalled a national emergency.]

When I get up at 4 p.m. and wander down the hall, I ask a group of American kids gathered around a radio whether anyone knows why the sirens sounded. They stare at me. Egypt and Syria have launched massive tank attacks along the Sinai and the Golan Heights, with heavy battles being fought. Doctors are being called up, and hospitals are being evacuated to prepare for the wounded. The bus drivers have been ordered back to provide transportation. Yoram, one of the madrichim (resident advisors) has already been called back to his unit.

Signs are up at the dorms telling us where shelters are. At 4:15 p.m., the radio is beeping, then broadcasting names every 15 minutes — code for different reserve units. The radio signal is weak, and Arab music from Jordan can be heard incongruously in the background. The sky has clouded over, and it has grown chilly.

Patti, a friend from WashU; Sondra, Patti’s friend from back home in Dallas; and I can’t understand the Hebrew anyway, so we head for shul. We are anxious, but we make wry jokes, having total confidence in the Israeli military. At 6:45 p.m., we walk back to the dorms in the dark. A barrier is up on the road, along with two parked trucks and an Army tent.

A blackout is in effect for the country. I go to a group gathered near the office, get a candle and matches from madricha Ruti. She informs me that we’re evacuating this dorm and moving up the hill to other dorms that have shelters, and to take food, a blanket, a flashlight, and a candle.

The rooms are fairly big, but hot — the blinds are all closed. Aaron Singer, the head of the One-Year Program, comes around to assure us that people will be here to guide us in the case of an emergency, and if the American Embassy says anything, we’ll be notified. I ask him how things are at Kiryat Yovel. He says he wants to go and find out and offers to take me. Delighted, I clear out.

We listen to the English news at 8:45 p.m. The Egyptians have beachheads on the east part of the Suez Canal, but they’ve been contained, Israel Broadcasting tells us. [Note: They were lying.] Singer translates Prime Minister Golda Meir’s speech to the nation: “There is no doubt of our victory,” she declares.

At Kiryat Yovel, some of the students have hitchhiked back from the (Conservative movement) youth hostel and other places. One panicked Canadian girl says the Western Wall was packed with people deep in prayer. The siren goes off — and they all start to scatter. The same thing happened in one of the Jerusalem neighbourhoods.

 Two of the resident advisors have already gone to their units. Tokens for phone calls are in short supply; I give a couple to Israeli kids in the dorm — one in uniform already — who are trying to call their units.

At 11 p.m., a group of us listens to the Voice of America. The VOA plays a CBS News report from Tel Aviv, to the background of wailing air-raid sirens. We can imagine what our parents must be thinking.

Israel Broadcasting at midnight says the situation is contained at both Sinai and Golan. There are two thousand Syrian tanks in the Golan! VOA says heavy fighting is still going on.

 

Sunday, Oct. 7, 1973

 “Students are urged to buy food tomorrow, but not too much,” says the notice posted in the dorms. Jerusalem housewives certainly heeded the first part of this advice.

 By the time I get to the Supersol at 9:30 a.m., the battle has already been waging for two hours. All six lines are filled with people backed into the aisles. Many have shopping carts completely filled, despite periodic announcements that there is only food to buy for today. One man indignantly defends his three loaves of bread to the checker, who tells him to put some back. I leave. By 11:30 a.m. when I return, there is plenty of milk, and new vegetables have replaced the battle-weary ones earlier.

 Everywhere, people gather around the radio, straining to hear. It is very frustrating during wartime to only be able to understand the general outlines of the broadcast.

 We go to Ulpan this afternoon. Our teacher Shulamit is an officer in the Instruction Corps, so they were not called up. We learn a slew of new words — frontier, blackout, armoured unit, absorption of attack — which are immediately proving to be useful. At night, two middle-aged men with Hagah, the Civil Defence Command, are standing in the street in front of the dorms and calling up to those with unshaded lights shining from their rooms. Cars have appeared with their headlights painted over in blue.

Courtesy of Michael Millenson

 The battles still appear serious. We expect a good number of casualties, given the lightly-manned posts on the borders. [Note: I had just turned 20. Israeli draftees manning those posts were 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds.]

Monday, Oct. 8, 1973

 Most of our class comes to Ulpan this morning, but there is no teacher. Buses are infrequent. An armoured personnel carrier rumbles up the street in downtown Jerusalem, not carrying troops at present, but ready. Windows on downtown stores are taped, following the orders of Hagah.

 The war has a name: “the Yom Kippur War.”

Michael Millenson, BA 1975, was a humour columnist for Student Life before going on to become a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist at the Chicago Tribune, a healthcare consultant, a book author, and an adjunct faculty member at Northwestern University. To listen to the full narration, Millenson elaborates on the Take One podcast.

https://www.studlife.com/scene/2023/10/04/caught-in-a-country-at-war-remembrances-of-yom-kippur-in-israel-1973