Celebrities… they’re just like us! Always comforting to be reminded that you’re not alone in the world.
At least once a year, I’ll start thinking about journaling regularly again, then I’ll check out some old journals. Year after year—same goals often reflecting the same problems.
Conan talks about this endless cycle:
That’s your true self. Just a piece of shit. I… it’s so funny you bring that up because I have all these journals that I’ve found and they’re all so annoyingly self helpy. It’s all like: tomorrow you’ll eat nothing. And you’ll run on a machine for six hours and you know, you’ll get… and it’s just… what?!
And it and it’s like that’s 1995. Wait 1998. Here’s an entry from 2014. Here’s one from 2019.
Judd Apatow has interviewed comedians all his life. He collected them in Sick in the Head. Some of the interviews are from when he was in high school and he re-interviews them decades later.
(Also check out this post, where I mention a Seinfeld technique from Sick in the Head. I promise it doesn’t have anything to do with marking an X on the calendar.)
Actually, while we’re talking about Sick in the Head and journaling, here’s something he says about reading books and actually doing the things in them:
Judd: I had ignored it because I hated it when a book asked you to do a lot of things—journaling, answering questions, et cetera—but I did it in that book, and it changed my life. That book is trying to inspire people to have the courage to be creative. There was a section that asked, “What would you want to be true or for you to believe about yourself that you are afraid to admit?” And I said, “That I want to be a genius like James Brooks.”
What does it really mean to finish1 a book?
There are certainly levels.
- Listening at 3x vs. skimming a physical copy for 10 minutes—You’re better off skimming
- Reading slowly, disconnected over months vs. listening at 2x all at once—I’d bet on listening at 2x all at once being better
It also depends on the book and why you’re reading it in the first place. There are things that will help you really understand the concepts better.
- Summarizing and sharing thoughts from the book makes it feel more finished.
- Actually applying practicing steps given in a book makes it feel even more finished.
By the way, ”That book” that Apatow is talking about is, you may have guessed it, Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. (Which I need to really someday sooner rather than later.)