The Journal Ritual: Why We Write Things Down
Since the beginning of human history, we have felt the need to communicate, record and make sense of our thoughts. From simple drawings on prehistoric cave walls to books hundreds of pages long, writing has always given us a way to leave something behind and make our thoughts known.
Journaling falls somewhere in between.
To journal is to put your thoughts, observations and feelings onto paper in their most immediate form. Whether anyone else ever reads them is entirely up to you.
Today, there are many ways to journal, each offering a different way to document a part of your life. Some of our favourite types include:
Travel Journals
This is where you'll record the places you've visited, the people you've met and the moments you never want to forget.
Maybe it will hold the story of a summer love that one day your grandchildren will hear about. Maybe it will be the first time you saw snow, or a few quiet days spent in a cottage somewhere far from the noise of the city. Years later, these pages can become more than memories. They can become a way back.
Dream Journals
This is one of our favourite types of journal.
Dreams are strange things. For a few hours, we can inhabit worlds that could never exist anywhere else. Places created entirely by our subconscious, that can only exist in our minds.
A dream journal gives you somewhere to record them before they disappear. The people you met, the places you went, the things that made no sense at all. A mixture of memories and imagination.
And perhaps, somewhere between those pages, you'll discover something about yourself that you could only learn with your eyes closed.
Daily Journals
These are the classics.
A daily journal records the ordinary: your routines, your tasks, your habits, the people you saw and the thoughts that occupied your mind.
It might not seem particularly important while you're living it. But one day, when your routine has changed, the people you used to know are no longer there, and the things you once did every day have become faded memories, you can open those pages and get a glimpse of the life you once lived.
Sometimes, the ordinary is what we miss the most.
Scent Journals
And finally, our Scent Journal.
Since creating Will Well, we've become increasingly fascinated by just how complex and magnificent the world of scent is.
Scents are everywhere. They surround us every day, often without us even noticing.
But every now and then, a scent stops us.
There's no better feeling than recognising the scent of your mother. The smell of your favourite fruit. The perfume of a dear friend you haven't seen in years. The smell of your favourite restaurant. The smell of rain, freshly cut grass, an old book, or a particular place you haven't visited in years.
Scent has a strange ability to take us somewhere else.
Our Scent Journal was created with these thoughts in mind. It is as a place to record those moments. To describe the scents that surround you, the memories they bring back and the feelings attached to them.
Think of it as a small time capsule of the scents that shaped your life.
Because one day, years from now, you might open those pages and remember not only what your life looked like, but what it smelled like.