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The Cartographer of Alchemy
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168.5.2.1 | 2023_WK31 On Making a Journal Sacred

168 hours have slipped away, leaving our lives that much shorter, what have we accomplished, changed, or how have we expanded? Are we fortified in strength, adorned with newfound happiness, or graced with wisdom? These hours are our canvas—have we painted it with growth?
168.5.2.1 | 2023_WK31 On Making a Journal Sacred
Photo by Grianghraf / Unsplash

168 hours have passed. Our lives are 168 hours shorter, what have we done, changed, or achieved? In what way did we grow? Stronger? Happier? Or Wiser?

Midyear is a sluggish time. The time seems to pass at a creep making days feel like months. Waiting turns torturing, it's the state of mind, by the way– not the distance in space or time.

This is usually the time when I find no book is more entertaining to read than my own journals from the past. To go back and revisit my former self.

I've been keeping my journals since my teens, but the lifelong literary journey began in elementary school. I owe that to my dad who gave me and my siblings journals to fill when we just first started to learn how to write. Here are some of the pages I extracted from my journals and edited for this week's posts.

5 themes I immersed in this week.

  1. Let's begin with Part 2 of Knowing Thyself and Approaching the Unconscious. This post is from last year but I haven't included it in the newsletter, and here it is, the second sequel to last week's Part 1.
  2. Extracting from my life-long journals, I compiled a list of quotes that are the most revisited which have had profound effects on shifting my paradigm– especially during the midlife transition period, and still resonate with me to this day. Read it here
  3. What is self-esteem and how does it differ from self-confidence? How is your self-esteem doing today anyway? Here's a quick check-in to remind you to be kind to your beloved self.
  4. And as we live in challenging times, let me convince you one more time of the benefits of keeping a journal, both to overall mental well-being and to the development of the brain. If you haven't yet considered it, read this and give it a try.
  5. July is finally bidding its farewell, and I'm glad that the brutal heat will soon be over. Last week's article in the Economist on Global Boling has once again, got me anxious with all these conflicts and crises, I can't help but wonder what the world is coming to. This is about raising awareness though, not heart rate, but it did raise mine.

2 of this week's theme quotes.

"We write to taste life twice. In the moment and in retrospection." – Anais Nin.
“I should advise you to put it all down as beautifully as you can – in some beautifully bound book,” Jung instructed. “It will seem as if you were making the visions banal — but then you need to do that — then you are freed from the power of them… Then when these things are in some precious book you can go to the book & turn over the pages & for you it will be your church — your cathedral — the silent places of your spirit where you will find renewal. If anyone tells you that it is morbid or neurotic and you listen to them — then you will lose your soul — for in that book is your soul.”
Source: NY Times Magazine article, “The Holy Grail of the Unconscious.”

1 self-reminder.

When I'm living a good day, what am I spending my time on? And imagine if I'm doing that right now, I'm already having a good day :)

Hope you all have a great week.

168.2.1 was my first attempt to send out a weekly newsletter. It lasted eleven weeks. It was hard, too ambitious a goal, but it taught me to love myself through missteps and the adversity of perseverance.

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--- 168 hours have slipped away, leaving our lives that much shorter, what have we accomplished, changed, or how have we expanded? Are we fortified in strength, adorned with newfound happiness, or graced with wisdom? These hours are our canvas—have we painted it with growth?