Thoughts From an Airport Parking Lot (9/30)

(Warning: This is just a stream of consciousness - calling it an essay would be charitable.)

(Warning: This is just a stream of consciousness - calling it an essay would be charitable.)

I’m writing this in the Notes app on my phone as I sit in the cell phone lot at the airport. Which makes me wonder - does the medium impact the quality or nature of one’s writing?

Julia Cameron’s morning pages exercise, where you wake up every morning and essentially dump all of your thoughts onto three pages, is meant to be done by hand. I believe the reasoning is that the writing is supposed to be more organic and natural.

I tried this exercise for a while and found that my brain moved way faster than my hand was able to produce words on the page. This was frustrating - though perhaps that’s the whole point. Maybe it’s meant to slow down your thinking, but that would seem contradictory to the idea of purging your thoughts without regard for their content or quality.

I’m noticing a different challenge with the Notes app. My brain feels constrained, almost as if the smaller screen and text are meant for smaller, less significant thoughts. This might be part of why texting is a terrible method of communication for anything of substance.

My preference is a blank Notion page maximized to full screen. It feels like a blank canvas. I can type fast enough to keep up with my brain as it twists and turns, and it allows me to edit on the fly as needed.

I have noticed, however, that when I journal I find myself editing my thoughts more, which I guess defeats the whole purpose. But I don’t want to give up the ability to type. Maybe the solution is a notes app where you can’t edit or delete anything that you type.

Evidently the first practical typewriter was completed in 1867 — it would be interesting to explore whether there was any kind of notable difference in written works before and after that time.

What do you think?