Shoved in the back of my bookcase behind a couple of forgotten books, covered by dust, was my latest hand-written journal I wrote. A black large-sized Moleskin (5x8.25), with a few notes sticking out in neon green and yellow, I parted ways with it on February 2nd, 2016, sometime after 06:30 AM: I always kept dates and times in my entries, along with page numbers.

I don’t recall if it was Typora or TiddlyWiki that replaced the written journal temporarily (I suspect the latter), but it was org-mode that became the full replacement in 2018. I still use org-mode every day, and I’m writing this post in it. Later, I will visit my projects in my org-mode agenda and write notes with timestamps. I would, as a habit sometimes goes, keep more personal notes in my daily journal org-mode entry a couple of times throughout the day.

Indeed, I use org-mode for many things. As I reunited with my old written journal yesterday, affectingly reading through my own scribbles and looking at the pictures I carefully cut and glued inside it, the notes, the sketches, I thought to myself I might be using org-mode might for too many things.

Even when fully engrossed with org-mode, I always felt pen-written notes are the most intimate kind. It’s the kind of record that is the most private, where there’s nothing between me and the pen: no code, no operating systems, no files. It is also - surprisingly - the longest-lasting form of note-taking. My oldest journal is over 20 years old, but my old digital notes are lost between several apps that came and went until I settled on Evernote, and these days I regret I did (before you jump - yes, I exported my notes from Evernote and they live in a somewhat messy org-mode form).

So I opened a page in my journal, and after almost 10 years of not writing in it, I wrote an entry ✍đŸģ. My handwriting was sluggish and slow, and my arm started to hurt almost as soon as I held the pen. I’m not used to handwriting notes anymore, but I want to change that.