Imagine if peoples diaries were required reading in our history classes. Yes facts are important but to read about important events in history from the people who were actually there in real time would be an amazing tool for us to have. We’d learn empathy early on and wouldn’t feel so alone.
Our understanding of history would also change greatly if we were to read the stories of many different types of people, not just those who have told history.
I have over 10 diaries I write about being an immigrant, a single mom, my bipolar brain etc. And often wondered who would want to Read them when I’m gone…so happy I came across this Ted Talk.
As someone who studied modern history, let me tell you that diararies like yours will be essential to future historians. Paper is patient, but digital memories will not last and can be hard to find. Try to find a professional historical archive and will it to them. Try to contact the speaker of this talk, I bet she knows. Your thoughts are valuable, don't give up.
I'll give this a shot. I dont think grief is self destructive its just immensely painful. What is self destructive is shame, which i think is actually grief over you denying yourself trying to please others, shirking from the grief of losing the others if you stay true to yourself.
@@mikedenison121 Hi Mike, nice to meet you. I'm okay, thanks for checking :) This sentence of the video just spoke to me, because I feel it's true. Was just an 'aha' moment.
@@Rene-uz3eb Hi Rene, I see what you mean. Grief in itself is not self-destructive indeed. It's normal. It's the self-contained grief, the grief that you don't share, that can be detrimental. And, as you say, we/I don't or didn't share grief, because of the shame. So I see what you mean. :)
Journaling sad moments is so important but I love the part about journaling about happy moments. It feels so amazing to write and celebrate the good in our life. Gratitude written is also so powerful.
I’ve been regularly keeping a diary since I was a little girl, almost 30 years. I go through 5-10 a year. It’s extremely cathartic and I use them to set goals for myself, and conquer them. I am my own cheerleader. 🦋
I use the word journal as well! To me the word diary feels too 11 year old😄 I am 41 and been writing and keeping since high school. Sometimes a year passes in between entries and I am okay with that!
@@raykusengsky2205 by hand can show you what mood you were in by the change of handwriting. I love seeing how frantic I was during some entries compared to others!
I keep a digital journal for my young grand-daughter. With my aging hands, it's too difficult for me to maintain a handwritten daily or almost daily journal. I write to her about her day and what she did - played with play-do, had fun at a local park playground, wouldn't eat broccoli at dinner, loved the giraffes at the zoo, snuggled up while I read her a bedtime story, etc. I also include inspirational and uplifting sayings and photos that I copy and paste from the internet. My husband, her Papa and I, her Granny have full custody of her as she has never met her bio dad and our daughter, her Mom, is unable to care for her. I want my grand-daughter to know about herself and to know that she is worthy and loved.
Ever since I was a little girl I’ve had many diaries, from invisible ink pens to gel pens to glitter pens. It took me a few years to get back into writing. But when the pandemic had started almost 2 years ago I had started writing more frequently. I don’t know what made me so unmotivated to stop. But after watching this it made me wanna continue writing & learning
I been writing my journey in notebooks for 35 years. it helps me get clears on things, my dreams and hopes. It gives me the strength to move forward or see where I am holding back. Each time I move I carry them with me and know one day my children will read them and understand their father a little more and see how life is sometimes a struggle but, in the end, it's the love I have for them and the people in my life who gave me love when I needed it. Keep writing or start writing God Bless
Just finished - this was outstanding! About a year ago I was wondering to people why it is we bury often meaningless “time capsules” and have head stones and wakes, and send golden discs out into the universe, but we don’t inter people with a permanent record of who they are. Just… bodies. We mostly don’t even write our own obit or eulogy - others do it. But others don’t KNOW you like you know you. I want anyone who finds me to also find my writings, images, ideas, accomplishments, feelings and perspectives. Instead there are just masses and masses of graves and we know virtually nothing about them except what *others* choose to say about them. I have many, if not all, of my late sisters diaries. She committed suicide in 2004. I haven’t gathered myself to read them yet.
I’m so sorry for your loss, but everything else you say is on point. My (adoptive) family love me, but I can almost guarantee if they wrote my eulogy it wouldn’t represent me accurately. My dad’s was full of BS, written by a person who’d known him for years.
Reading diaries if people going through the stages and feelings we all experience, would possibly gives us a perspective on the human condition, and help us traverse through our journey, like we had the wisdom of a 1000 aunts passing along their knowledge.
I love that part you wrote, it is moving and I am gonna write it for myself in my journal! "...like we had the wisdom of 1,000 aunts passing along their knowledge"💜
I bought a new diary 3 years ago in which there were wrote ones of the hardest experiences in my life, loss, love, nostalgia and disappointment were the 4 major topics in those 3 years. This summer i went on vacation and on my way back home they stole my suitcase, in which there was my diary. It didnt hurt the fact that I lost all my clothes and little presents, but the fact that I'll never be able to get it back devastates me. A good friend of mine tho, told me that maybe it was a sign to make a change in my life.
I kept a diary for 13 years. I started it when I was 14. When I was 27 I burnt them all, crying because I wanted to have a new start. I'm so regretful now. I could have had a new start without burning the past. All I needed to do was closing the chapter and starting a new one.
Decided in 1976 to get Real. Commenced expressing my true thoughts and feelings via diaries. They are definitely my dearest and most loyal, supportive friends and have guided me through myriad challenges, heartaches, heartbreaks as well as cherishable adventures. They help me HEAL and EVOLVE. 🦋
Reading Anne Frank changed my life. My most popular video on RUclips is about journaling and I tell my students everyday it's incredibly healing. This was so beautiful. I cannot wait to show this to my students! Thank you for this.
I live a JAMB Lifestyle. Journaling, Art, Music, and Bible. I have been journaling my life consistently since 2020….so that my children and grandchildren can know my thoughts throughout these years. This talk confirms to me that I doing the right thing.
Really enjoyed this. I loved the message about emotions transcending time. For whatever reason I think sometimes I picture people in the past somehow being better able to deal with death or difficulty, but I love this shows that we are all human, and we all feel similar emotions and can connect over that.
I'm a 60s scoop baby... i left home at 16 and didn't return for 28 years. Then met my natural mom.. early 20s in Florida. We are on fb mostly now. I'm a Widow twice. Once accidental od and one a suicide jan 9th on his bday coming up 4 years now. Ouch......I want to share how I'm getting through it with the Medicine wheel. Also I I live with deficits from an occiptocal stroke. A healer guided me to do be here alone and well. Sooo... I get pain. I'm also 1st Nations Mi'kmaq and found my culture at 34 that has immensity helped heal me. I want to share this journey if anyone wants to hear.
My mom was an au pair in France and her stories inspired me to study French and later study in France. Long after, she shared her diary from that year; a good Catholic girl who went to mass, learned to cook coq au vin…my journals were nowhere near as innocent! 😵💫😆🙃
I’ve been journaling in the form of poetry for 2 decades now and I wonder whether my children (I have 4) or future grandchildren would care to read the likely thousands of poems I’ve whittled my thoughts and feelings into 🤷🏻♀️ it is my therapy
as someone who’s done the same, almost as if by force of habit, i think that’s truly beautiful. the mind etching words onto paper, words that can hold their own significance
I always am amazed by what people find to do in life, and how it always seems to turn out when they follow a dream or a quest, like you have. That was an amazing story, thank you so very much. I have a million notebooks around the house, partially filled. I don’t think what I write is good enough. But for whom? These people whose diaries you have read can live again, thanks to you. Maybe I can have the courage to just write my life down, too, unabashed. Thank you.
As soon as i learn writing i already wrote my daily journal like already at age 6 after i started day 1 grade 1 class, i wrote in all capital letters just as i wrote my name, " Lord please help me not pee on the bed again because i am Big already. Sometimes in a day or two no words were written but only an emoticon-like Sketches. Sometimes i wrote (dated)my comments about what iread in the Bible on its margins . On the 29th of August 1994, i read 2 Tim 2 and i wrote to God telling him, Lord i don't want to be an ordinary bowl. Make me very special to you. Then yr 2020 a friend of mine introduced me to a man name Timothy so i thought i should read the Bible again about Tim. I was amazed I found out that 10 yrs after i wrote it i started medical studies and my medical board exam result came out on a same month and date 29.08.2010 that i wrote my letter to God. Indeed God made me an "ordinary bowl" with extra ordinary Services to for his people. 😊👩⚕️ I think Sally cannot read some of my Penmanship tho 😉🤭.
@@angeliachenoweth2522 hehe i think the same and all of us are special to God. if we humble ourselves by asking...but then he decides whats best for us in the best time because he is all knowing and so we praise and thank the Lord through Jesus even if what we ask is not given. 🛐
2021 was the first year of my life that I started AND finished a journal. I was/am super proud of myself. Flow of expression is such an amazing practice to gift oneself.
Jean have some schrooms like they did while writing the christian bible and talk about wild stories by sheep herders that didn't even know where the SUN went at night
I too write diary and when i gave my love of life to read it *the whole diary* i didn't have any idea what i have written in it because i didn't written it to be read by someone else , she just read it for 15-20 minutes i was not facing her because of fear and after that she just came to me with a smile and tears of happiness in her eyes and just hugged me 🤗 Ay that moment I felt like "yes , i can spend my rest of life with het "
I have been keeping a personal diary for about 10 years now, I am so sorry for the people who will have to go through that after I passed XD. It´s such a mess of random thoughts, bits of arts, very little stories of what is happening currently in my life (or sometimes how do I feel about something without even specified what that thing is). Also bits of it is in codes, foreign languages and weird calligraphies, pretty undecipherable. It amused me to reread bits because I realize I´ve forgotten to announce that I have a new boyfriend after I already started writing about what did we do on the third date 🤣🤣🤣. But I agree with her a 10000000% about how self-contained grief is self-destructive. However messy it always helps me to get those messy and harmful thoughts out of my head, and having them worded or draw in front of my eyes makes them, not weaker exactly, but less fearful since I can comprehend them a bit better. It also helps me realize some subtle meanings behind my own feelings, something that I would NEVER think of it if I wasn't writing about it. So please, keep a diary. Or at least just try. It doesn't have to be perfectly written, nor daily. Anything is valid as long as you feel is right for you.
I have kept diaries for a decade or two but my last ones are depressing and random hardly dated hard to follow apart from reading hate 😞 my earlier journals might be of interest to my kids when they are older or when I pass but the later ones I'm wondering if I should burn them or something
@@mammadingo9165 I know it can be hard to look back at then. That's how life is sometimes, and maybe there's a lesson there for your kids. To resist, and not to lose hope. I think you'll probably regret it if you burn them. I've been tempted more than once, but sticked to my own rule of never destroying them no matter what, and I am happy, even if still cannot read back whole months and years. I hope thinks get better for you.
Beautiful delivery. Sally knows how to keep an audience engaged; I didn't want her Talk to end! I found her podcast on Spotify: Diary Discoveries. Now I don't have to stop listening to these fascinating stories!
This is one of the most interesting TED talks from recent memory. I am fully inspired to begin keeping a diary again. Thank you for this. I so glad that people like Sally MacNamara are out there
Journaling is an important part of my life. I keep them not only to see where I can go, but also to have a record of where I have been. It’s something I also hope to pass on to show my future kids/younger generations that I’ve been where they’ve been and my wisdom may not be enough for them to comprehend as I’m decades removed. I read the Royal Diaries series, Sylvia Plath, and Anne Frank and they have taught me so much about our shared humanity. Anne Frank’s diary was a big comfort during the lockdown.
When someone writes about something, a thought, a dream, it becomes part of all that is, as real a river or a mountain, for its presence can affect the one who comes across it. Like a crossroad leading to places the hiker didn't know existed, to paths one never expected to walk. Words can build castles in our minds, light fires in our hearts, put wings on our imagination. Of all the things Humanity has made, the written word is perhaps the greatest because, apart from describing and help create the world we can all see, it can also give life to the Universe that would have otherwise existed only in the thoughts and dreams of a single man.
I'm just here to say if you struggle to keep a written diary like me, try recording. I used to keep a diary when i was younger, but although I type fast, my brain is faster than my hands nowadays and my emotions are often complex, and I often felt like writing takes too much time and still don't convey me well. I've lost too many years of precious memories this way. Eversince I 'discovered' recordings, I have been able to preserve so many of my thoughts and feelings right when I had them, and exactly how I got them - there are so many things in my tones that my words would have failed. I know many can't stand to listen to themselves recorded, but after I practiced self-love exercises, I now find these audible past-selves nothing short of endearing & fascinating. Don't let this 2022 you slip into oblivion, give it a go!
My first page of my journals all have a warning for any of my loved ones who may find and read them. 😂I believe they could be helpful, but I also know there are some things they may wish they’d never found out. I mostly write because it’s cathartic for me, but also because I want my children to have them-to know so much of what we think makes us abnormal or “a bad person” because no one really talks about it, is actually pretty common.
Beautiful! I've always been fascinated about peoples' stories and the lives they lived. This Ted talk rekindled that passion in me. Thank you! I cried during the story of Alice and Barbara. I hope they lived a good life! ❤️
I'm glad that I love writing my own story day after day. My goal is just I wanted to read it years later and go back to all of those times of grief and happiness feeling nostalgic for it but also maybe I'll be diagnosed with Alzheimer's I hope not so I can go back to my life easily as someone who instantly got recognized her family just by reading her diary to her. It's such a sweet entry of life. To know why you do this or that, it's because your life is as much as important as your breathe. So take a moment to thank the pages and the pen and ink you use to scribe piece by piece the letters that have power once it mended a word. Thanks for sharing us, I've been journaling for years and I enhanced my skills and inspiration because of the stories you've told us as you've read those. God bless you.
I have my late partners mom Alice writings too and her relatives from 1800s if you want them. Also I wanted to add as I wrote these diaries I write them knowing someone will read them, so I write them as as if I'm writing them to you personally. I even put insert psychological term here in my writing because I know someone will get it ...I thought there's something wrong with me. I just don't know what it was. So as I read them now I'm able to put things into perspective. There's so many of them I can even get through them. I know it's my path to publish them.. Tim wanted me to write then before he passed.. always yelled at me too. I'm so glad there's people there like you doing this. You get me!!!
RUclips suggested me this video and I'm thankful and crying while loving you. I've always kept diaries since I can remember. Actually I write everywhere, I have tons of....written things. I'm a graphomaniac, and I suffer from several personality disorders and writing down my thoughts helped me and keeps on jelping me to get through the difficult stages of my life, because no-one-have-never-understood-the-struggling I was going through and never even care to (nice family, uh?). Diaries and music. And dissociation, unfortunately/luckily. I'm an introvert. I'm empathetic. I was able to guess people's feeling since I was really young aged and realized quickly how false people are. (again: nice family, uh?). Diaries have been the friends I've always wished for and never had. And never have, but now I'm okay with that. Your work has been amazing! Barbara and Alice, chose you ;)
I went back and read my diaries. They were filled with grief, loneliness, and heartbreak. They chronicled the bullying of my precious son, foreshadowing some terrible days. More were to come. I destroyed them. Nothing good would come from their existence.
This ted talk takes your mind ona journey that has so many plot twists that it feels so great to watch that it becomes difficult to describe just how much you will end up learning
Diary is important (even though I don't have it) because you will get to know in the future- what you felt exactly at that moment because as time passes on you forget the exact feeling and cannot accurately write it down or explain to someone, exactly.
This is pretty cool. I struggle with keeping a diary. I always have… more so now with the time demands of life. But this has inspired me to put forth the effort. Journal entries are gold and gems in a sense… one day they may be buried and rediscovered.
Wow!Very inspiring!I never had enough patience for keeping a diary, it always feels like my thoughts are racing a hundred times faster than I can write. It's like I can not catch my thoughts. Thank you for sharing your experiences with us!
This video has a big benefits for me because it showed me a lot of things was hide about reading , so i deepley believe in books and diaries this is gave me an age on my age .
I'm currently writing this novel in the form of a diary. A boy who is madly in love with his friend realizes soon enough that his longing and desperation are in fact hidden. She is clueless. He, on the other hand, convinces himself that he can in fact read her mind. It's a mind-twisting adventure as they seek out to follow a man who they know little about just to be abandoned in a small town where he has to learn human principles such as basic needs like love and feeling love and empathy; something he has never learned before. He is constantly overwhelmed and sadly can't even express deep emotion due to trauma; he takes his own life. She continues his story from her perspective, analyzing his diary. I think this video will be a tremendous tool I can use to help with idea building so I mean if you all have any ideas or visualizations PLEASE comment back!
It's 2022 and I think I'll be trying my hands on a dairy as a new year resolution. Wish me luck! Gotta dust the blank half written diaries that are lurking around my house, Phew!
I video diary I have over 100 videos documenting my most painful moments I talk about alone when my husband and I separated I asked him to vlog his thoughts we could swap videos at the end of our time apart then we could understood what we went through. Now I feel it’s so personal I can’t watch I’m not ready it’s so raw painful and horrible what I’ve been through
I just realized this was just posted... wow. I have lots of video diaries too.. hammered too.. kinda cause I knew someone would relate and my stages of grief would help them navigate their own. I have spoke at events about the loss of culture and how it has saved me... and here we are in a pandemic. And I get it.. I'm so thrilled I'm here. I love all the comments... I'm so moved!!!!
I have done extensive geneaological research of my family....over and over they have had to restart their lives after the Depression, WWII, after the American Civil War, after the English Civil War, after deaths on the battlefields of Scotland...Lords,,knights, commoners, Robert the Bruce and HIS ancestors...four kings of Scotland...life was not glamourous even for the high born...it was struggle, conflict, and often ruin...what is missing are the personal.stories , the economic and political ones survive. But how were their marrieges, what were the parental and child relationships like what were their daily lives? These, only diaries would tell. Wills etc tell of their possessions but we all know possessions are little comfort in life omce we are not starving and there is a roof above us...it is the PEOPLE we care most for who.flesh out our lives...and THAT is what diaries tell us.
I started keeping a journal/sketchbook for a year now. I draw in it and write whenever I feel the need. I've been severely depressed for about five years now. In just a year the sketchbook has seen the absolute worst of me. In just a year I've also improved drastically with art. Due to the depression my brain's very frazzled and memories and years blend into an incomprehensible mess, my sketchbook is like a timeline where I can know when something happened. "Huh, this thing happened yesterday? I thought that was a month ago!" My biggest regret is the I hadn't started earlier. There's so many thoughts and feelings I don't remember that are just gone because I hadn't started earlier. I started last December, if i had even just started a few months prior I could've had some recounting of visiting a hospital, though I do have two scribbles about the fear on my iPad proving that what happened wasn't just my imagination. Drawings and words hold memories, it's truly incredible. I'm on my 7th sketchbook/journal now and very soon will be on my 8th
this comment could pass as a diary entry on its own right there haha just add the time and date. there were so many invaluable lessons i would've forgotten if it weren't for journaling/ keeping a diary- it's important in that regard as well. it sounds to me that you drew your profile picture on your own, it genuinely looks amazing and alive if it wasn't you who drew it- awkward.
@@shutnawi6635 thank you so much! And yeah, i do write like that in my journal! It's all just a stream of consciousness. And yes, I did draw my profile pic! I'm also an animator and i make many other things! My sketchbook has also been great for not only my thoughts, but also developing ideas and drawings!
@@FrilledMayfly_AmberlyFerrule holy lord your whole channel is a piece of art. i'm happy you somehow started doing it. i hope to see your name on some popular drawings one day.
I have some from when I was 17.. then all the way through to 2018 after my 2nd partner passed. Took his life.... so strange to read them...I want to share them all.
I've always been more interested in the future as opposed to the inalterable past. The people in the past had their time. But this is OUR time. This is our NOW. The past is theirs - the now and the future is ours, and that is what we should focus on. It's all we have that is ours.
Yes, although there is the saying “those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” In learning about the past we learn wisdom for the future.
Imagine if peoples diaries were required reading in our history classes. Yes facts are important but to read about important events in history from the people who were actually there in real time would be an amazing tool for us to have. We’d learn empathy early on and wouldn’t feel so alone.
Our understanding of history would also change greatly if we were to read the stories of many different types of people, not just those who have told history.
It would also bring an accuracy often skipped over by historians
We would realize life's pain is not inflicted only on us; we all have and will experience it.
Yes ! I agree, good idea.
Hod bless you
🌹🙏 beautiful message
I have over 10 diaries I write about being an immigrant, a single mom, my bipolar brain etc. And often wondered who would want to Read them when I’m gone…so happy I came across this Ted Talk.
Hi 👋 how are you doing?
I would love to read yours and you would read mind?
As someone who studied modern history, let me tell you that diararies like yours will be essential to future historians. Paper is patient, but digital memories will not last and can be hard to find. Try to find a professional historical archive and will it to them. Try to contact the speaker of this talk, I bet she knows. Your thoughts are valuable, don't give up.
@@nessidoe8080 thank you for your kind words. I appreciate the input.
@@nessidoe8080 o
self-contained grief is self-destructive. BAM. Hits right in the feels.
Hi Fien how are you doing. Nice meeting you. I’m mike. I will like to know. ?.
That’s why we take it out on others it’s the easiest way😕
I'll give this a shot. I dont think grief is self destructive its just immensely painful. What is self destructive is shame, which i think is actually grief over you denying yourself trying to please others, shirking from the grief of losing the others if you stay true to yourself.
@@mikedenison121 Hi Mike, nice to meet you. I'm okay, thanks for checking :) This sentence of the video just spoke to me, because I feel it's true. Was just an 'aha' moment.
@@Rene-uz3eb Hi Rene, I see what you mean. Grief in itself is not self-destructive indeed. It's normal. It's the self-contained grief, the grief that you don't share, that can be detrimental. And, as you say, we/I don't or didn't share grief, because of the shame. So I see what you mean. :)
At the start of covid, I read journal entries from the Spanish flu and it was surprisingly relatable
Would you mind sharing the file? Sounds like a good read!
Yes , please share!
Oh wow.
This is so cool
Where did you find these?
Journaling sad moments is so important but I love the part about journaling about happy moments. It feels so amazing to write and celebrate the good in our life. Gratitude written is also so powerful.
That’s nice
I’ve been regularly keeping a diary since I was a little girl, almost 30 years. I go through 5-10 a year. It’s extremely cathartic and I use them to set goals for myself, and conquer them. I am my own cheerleader. 🦋
That's so wonderful and inspiring
@@edensirgu3191 aww I’m happy to hear this! 🦋
@@edensirgu3191 aww I’m happy to hear this! 🦋
I've been journaling for 25+ years. It truly is a blessing to have a documented account of my feelings and thoughts through the years.
I use the word journal as well! To me the word diary feels too 11 year old😄 I am 41 and been writing and keeping since high school. Sometimes a year passes in between entries and I am okay with that!
As an avid diary keeper, this was beautiful. Nothing beats the power of written word 💜
What's your take on writing diaries on a keyboard vs writing by hand?
@@raykusengsky2205 by hand can show you what mood you were in by the change of handwriting. I love seeing how frantic I was during some entries compared to others!
@@raykusengsky2205 always write by hand. It's more personal and durable
Movies are pretty good.
@@raykusengsky2205 I started on the notes app, then switched to pretty books lol
The reminder of “go easy on yourself” when reading your old diaries, will stay with me.
I lost my father to Covid-19. This talk has inspired me to start my own journaling practice. What an incredible talk!
Really sorry to hear about your loss. I hope that journaling helps you.
@@Aritul Thank you!
Go Ryan and our condolences
My condolences. Yes, keep a diary for your own family
You’re not alone. I did too 💖
I keep a digital journal for my young grand-daughter. With my aging hands, it's too difficult for me to maintain a handwritten daily or almost daily journal. I write to her about her day and what she did - played with play-do, had fun at a local park playground, wouldn't eat broccoli at dinner, loved the giraffes at the zoo, snuggled up while I read her a bedtime story, etc. I also include inspirational and uplifting sayings and photos that I copy and paste from the internet. My husband, her Papa and I, her Granny have full custody of her as she has never met her bio dad and our daughter, her Mom, is unable to care for her. I want my grand-daughter to know about herself and to know that she is worthy and loved.
That's beautiful Eliz, you sound like a fantastic grandmother
Ever since I was a little girl I’ve had many diaries, from invisible ink pens to gel pens to glitter pens. It took me a few years to get back into writing. But when the pandemic had started almost 2 years ago I had started writing more frequently. I don’t know what made me so unmotivated to stop. But after watching this it made me wanna continue writing & learning
Same here, but life happens, and we forget to write!
I been writing my journey in notebooks for 35 years. it helps me get clears on things, my dreams and hopes. It gives me the strength to move forward or see where I am holding back. Each time I move I carry them with me and know one day my children will read them and understand their father a little more and see how life is sometimes a struggle but, in the end, it's the love I have for them and the people in my life who gave me love when I needed it. Keep writing or start writing God Bless
Just finished - this was outstanding! About a year ago I was wondering to people why it is we bury often meaningless “time capsules” and have head stones and wakes, and send golden discs out into the universe, but we don’t inter people with a permanent record of who they are. Just… bodies. We mostly don’t even write our own obit or eulogy - others do it. But others don’t KNOW you like you know you. I want anyone who finds me to also find my writings, images, ideas, accomplishments, feelings and perspectives. Instead there are just masses and masses of graves and we know virtually nothing about them except what *others* choose to say about them. I have many, if not all, of my late sisters diaries. She committed suicide in 2004. I haven’t gathered myself to read them yet.
I’m so sorry for your loss, but everything else you say is on point. My (adoptive) family love me, but I can almost guarantee if they wrote my eulogy it wouldn’t represent me accurately. My dad’s was full of BS, written by a person who’d known him for years.
My fave genre is autobiographies/biographies. True stories, true thoughts, not pretty musings sometimes.
I start liking this genre too... Quite interesting
books ud recommend in this genre?
This woman has such light and goodness about her. How inspiring!
Reading diaries if people going through the stages and feelings we all experience, would possibly gives us a perspective on the human condition, and help us traverse through our journey, like we had the wisdom of a 1000 aunts passing along their knowledge.
I love that part you wrote, it is moving and I am gonna write it for myself in my journal! "...like we had the wisdom of 1,000 aunts passing along their knowledge"💜
I bought a new diary 3 years ago in which there were wrote ones of the hardest experiences in my life, loss, love, nostalgia and disappointment were the 4 major topics in those 3 years. This summer i went on vacation and on my way back home they stole my suitcase, in which there was my diary. It didnt hurt the fact that I lost all my clothes and little presents, but the fact that I'll never be able to get it back devastates me. A good friend of mine tho, told me that maybe it was a sign to make a change in my life.
I kept a diary for 13 years. I started it when I was 14. When I was 27 I burnt them all, crying because I wanted to have a new start. I'm so regretful now. I could have had a new start without burning the past. All I needed to do was closing the chapter and starting a new one.
Decided in 1976 to get Real.
Commenced expressing my true
thoughts and feelings via diaries.
They are definitely my dearest and
most loyal, supportive friends and
have guided me through myriad
challenges, heartaches, heartbreaks
as well as cherishable adventures.
They help me HEAL and EVOLVE. 🦋
Reading Anne Frank changed my life. My most popular video on RUclips is about journaling and I tell my students everyday it's incredibly healing. This was so beautiful. I cannot wait to show this to my students! Thank you for this.
I live a JAMB Lifestyle. Journaling, Art, Music, and Bible. I have been journaling my life consistently since 2020….so that my children and grandchildren can know my thoughts throughout these years. This talk confirms to me that I doing the right thing.
My dad past away and listening at you it make me feel with hope, we all past through many hard things, and we all have power in our stories
Absolutely captivating. I was blown away by her final anecdote about the two girls on the SS Normandie.
Amazing!
Really enjoyed this. I loved the message about emotions transcending time. For whatever reason I think sometimes I picture people in the past somehow being better able to deal with death or difficulty, but I love this shows that we are all human, and we all feel similar emotions and can connect over that.
I'm a 60s scoop baby... i left home at 16 and didn't return for 28 years. Then met my natural mom.. early 20s in Florida. We are on fb mostly now. I'm a Widow twice. Once accidental od and one a suicide jan 9th on his bday coming up 4 years now. Ouch......I want to share how I'm getting through it with the Medicine wheel.
Also I I live with deficits from an occiptocal stroke. A healer guided me to do be here alone and well. Sooo...
I get pain. I'm also 1st Nations Mi'kmaq and found my culture at 34 that has immensity helped heal me. I want to share this journey if anyone wants to hear.
Thankyou
My mom was an au pair in France and her stories inspired me to study French and later study in France. Long after, she shared her diary from that year; a good Catholic girl who went to mass, learned to cook coq au vin…my journals were nowhere near as innocent! 😵💫😆🙃
I’ve been journaling in the form of poetry for 2 decades now and I wonder whether my children (I have 4) or future grandchildren would care to read the likely thousands of poems I’ve whittled my thoughts and feelings into 🤷🏻♀️ it is my therapy
Save them and preserve them as much as you can. You never know who is going to read your words years later ❤️
@@laurenk4161 😊 💗 !
as someone who’s done the same, almost as if by force of habit, i think that’s truly beautiful. the mind etching words onto paper, words that can hold their own significance
That's totally incredible! I admire your poetry without even having read it! Could we read some of them though? :)
They will and it will help them. It is a great gift to treasure.
I always am amazed by what people find to do in life, and how it always seems to turn out when they follow a dream or a quest, like you have. That was an amazing story, thank you so very much. I have a million notebooks around the house, partially filled. I don’t think what I write is good enough. But for whom? These people whose diaries you have read can live again, thanks to you. Maybe I can have the courage to just write my life down, too, unabashed. Thank you.
oh yes please do, there are so many nosy people out here who would love to read them, me for one 🤣
Thank you, Coucher. I will get busy!
As soon as i learn writing i already wrote my daily journal like already at age 6 after i started day 1 grade 1 class, i wrote in all capital letters just as i wrote my name, " Lord please help me not pee on the bed again because i am Big already. Sometimes in a day or two no words were written but only an emoticon-like Sketches. Sometimes i wrote (dated)my comments about what iread in the Bible on its margins . On the 29th of August 1994, i read 2 Tim 2 and i wrote to God telling him, Lord i don't want to be an ordinary bowl. Make me very special to you. Then yr 2020 a friend of mine introduced me to a man name Timothy so i thought i should read the Bible again about Tim. I was amazed I found out that 10 yrs after i wrote it i started medical studies and my medical board exam result came out on a same month and date 29.08.2010 that i wrote my letter to God. Indeed God made me an "ordinary bowl" with extra ordinary Services to for his people. 😊👩⚕️
I think Sally cannot read some of my Penmanship tho 😉🤭.
Oh, Mari, your story is so inspiring and helpful to me! You are a wonderful bowl full of God’s love!
@@angeliachenoweth2522 hehe i think the same and all of us are special to God. if we humble ourselves by asking...but then he decides whats best for us in the best time because he is all knowing and so we praise and thank the Lord through Jesus even if what we ask is not given. 🛐
2021 was the first year of my life that I started AND finished a journal. I was/am super proud of myself. Flow of expression is such an amazing practice to gift oneself.
Thank you, Sally. You are a wonderful storyteller yourself. You are very uplifting, kind, and encouraging. God bless you and your family.
Jean have some schrooms like they did while writing the christian bible and talk about wild stories by sheep herders that didn't even know where the SUN went at night
Beautiful talk! As a keeper of my father's 1940-s war diary I can whole-heartedly relate to your devotion and enthusiasm. Thank you.
I too write diary and when i gave my love of life to read it *the whole diary* i didn't have any idea what i have written in it because i didn't written it to be read by someone else , she just read it for 15-20 minutes i was not facing her because of fear and after that she just came to me with a smile and tears of happiness in her eyes and just hugged me 🤗
Ay that moment I felt like "yes , i can spend my rest of life with het "
I have been keeping a personal diary for about 10 years now, I am so sorry for the people who will have to go through that after I passed XD. It´s such a mess of random thoughts, bits of arts, very little stories of what is happening currently in my life (or sometimes how do I feel about something without even specified what that thing is). Also bits of it is in codes, foreign languages and weird calligraphies, pretty undecipherable. It amused me to reread bits because I realize I´ve forgotten to announce that I have a new boyfriend after I already started writing about what did we do on the third date 🤣🤣🤣.
But I agree with her a 10000000% about how self-contained grief is self-destructive. However messy it always helps me to get those messy and harmful thoughts out of my head, and having them worded or draw in front of my eyes makes them, not weaker exactly, but less fearful since I can comprehend them a bit better. It also helps me realize some subtle meanings behind my own feelings, something that I would NEVER think of it if I wasn't writing about it.
So please, keep a diary. Or at least just try. It doesn't have to be perfectly written, nor daily. Anything is valid as long as you feel is right for you.
I love this.
I have kept diaries for a decade or two but my last ones are depressing and random hardly dated hard to follow apart from reading hate 😞 my earlier journals might be of interest to my kids when they are older or when I pass but the later ones I'm wondering if I should burn them or something
@@mammadingo9165 I know it can be hard to look back at then. That's how life is sometimes, and maybe there's a lesson there for your kids. To resist, and not to lose hope.
I think you'll probably regret it if you burn them. I've been tempted more than once, but sticked to my own rule of never destroying them no matter what, and I am happy, even if still cannot read back whole months and years.
I hope thinks get better for you.
Beautiful delivery. Sally knows how to keep an audience engaged; I didn't want her Talk to end! I found her podcast on Spotify: Diary Discoveries. Now I don't have to stop listening to these fascinating stories!
Alice and Barbaras story is a dream come true of journal reading excitement. What are the odds!!!
This is one of the most interesting TED talks from recent memory. I am fully inspired to begin keeping a diary again. Thank you for this. I so glad that people like Sally MacNamara are out there
Yeah I agree with you reading is only way for improving ourselves and make good relationship together
Journaling is an important part of my life. I keep them not only to see where I can go, but also to have a record of where I have been. It’s something I also hope to pass on to show my future kids/younger generations that I’ve been where they’ve been and my wisdom may not be enough for them to comprehend as I’m decades removed.
I read the Royal Diaries series, Sylvia Plath, and Anne Frank and they have taught me so much about our shared humanity. Anne Frank’s diary was a big comfort during the lockdown.
When someone writes about something, a thought, a dream, it becomes part of all that is, as real a river or a mountain, for its presence can affect the one who comes across it. Like a crossroad leading to places the hiker didn't know existed, to paths one never expected to walk.
Words can build castles in our minds, light fires in our hearts, put wings on our imagination. Of all the things Humanity has made, the written word is perhaps the greatest because, apart from describing and help create the world we can all see, it can also give life to the Universe that would have otherwise existed only in the thoughts and dreams of a single man.
That’s funny, the UpperRoom article of the day is called “you’re not alone”. What a great message, and about our stories being important.
Phenomenal. I’ve watched more than a fair share of TEDx talks through the years-this one trumps them ALL. It’s wonderful. Thank you.
One of the most beautiful talks I've heard!
I'm just here to say if you struggle to keep a written diary like me, try recording. I used to keep a diary when i was younger, but although I type fast, my brain is faster than my hands nowadays and my emotions are often complex, and I often felt like writing takes too much time and still don't convey me well. I've lost too many years of precious memories this way. Eversince I 'discovered' recordings, I have been able to preserve so many of my thoughts and feelings right when I had them, and exactly how I got them - there are so many things in my tones that my words would have failed. I know many can't stand to listen to themselves recorded, but after I practiced self-love exercises, I now find these audible past-selves nothing short of endearing & fascinating. Don't let this 2022 you slip into oblivion, give it a go!
My first page of my journals all have a warning for any of my loved ones who may find and read them. 😂I believe they could be helpful, but I also know there are some things they may wish they’d never found out. I mostly write because it’s cathartic for me, but also because I want my children to have them-to know so much of what we think makes us abnormal or “a bad person” because no one really talks about it, is actually pretty common.
Beautiful! I've always been fascinated about peoples' stories and the lives they lived. This Ted talk rekindled that passion in me. Thank you! I cried during the story of Alice and Barbara. I hope they lived a good life! ❤️
I honestly can’t wait to go home now and find my old diaries i wrote as a teenager. Feeling so nostalgic
I'm glad that I love writing my own story day after day. My goal is just I wanted to read it years later and go back to all of those times of grief and happiness feeling nostalgic for it but also maybe I'll be diagnosed with Alzheimer's I hope not so I can go back to my life easily as someone who instantly got recognized her family just by reading her diary to her. It's such a sweet entry of life. To know why you do this or that, it's because your life is as much as important as your breathe. So take a moment to thank the pages and the pen and ink you use to scribe piece by piece the letters that have power once it mended a word.
Thanks for sharing us, I've been journaling for years and I enhanced my skills and inspiration because of the stories you've told us as you've read those. God bless you.
Beautifully delivered! I keep journals, multiple types, I love it! If you’re reading this, it’s a sign that you should start your own journal ✨✨
I have my late partners mom Alice writings too and her relatives from 1800s if you want them.
Also I wanted to add as I wrote these diaries I write them knowing someone will read them, so I write them as as if I'm writing them to you personally. I even put insert psychological term here in my writing because I know someone will get it ...I thought there's something wrong with me. I just don't know what it was. So as I read them now I'm able to put things into perspective. There's so many of them I can even get through them. I know it's my path to publish them.. Tim wanted me to write then before he passed.. always yelled at me too. I'm so glad there's people there like you doing this. You get me!!!
I had two other comments here i lost weird
RUclips suggested me this video and I'm thankful and crying while loving you.
I've always kept diaries since I can remember. Actually I write everywhere, I have tons of....written things. I'm a graphomaniac, and I suffer from several personality disorders and writing down my thoughts helped me and keeps on jelping me to get through the difficult stages of my life, because no-one-have-never-understood-the-struggling I was going through and never even care to (nice family, uh?). Diaries and music. And dissociation, unfortunately/luckily.
I'm an introvert. I'm empathetic. I was able to guess people's feeling since I was really young aged and realized quickly how false people are. (again: nice family, uh?).
Diaries have been the friends I've always wished for and never had. And never have, but now I'm okay with that.
Your work has been amazing! Barbara and Alice, chose you ;)
This was a beautiful, extraordinarily moving and inspiring talk. Thank you
I went back and read my diaries. They were filled with grief, loneliness, and heartbreak. They chronicled the bullying of my precious son, foreshadowing some terrible days. More were to come. I destroyed them. Nothing good would come from their existence.
I hope writing things down helped you through those tough times. I read my old diaries and noticed I rarely wrote when things were going well.
This ted talk takes your mind ona journey that has so many plot twists that it feels so great to watch that it becomes difficult to describe just how much you will end up learning
Ohhh my goodness! Thank you so much for this conversation. You just made my life more meaningful. Thank you!
Excellent talk. She made me want to pick up my pen and start writing.
Those 2 journals gave me goosebumps! What an incredible synchronicity!
I love watching TEDx talks they’re very interesting. She speaks very well, keeps me in tuned with what she has to say.
SO good, Sally! Way to go! Touched my heart!
What an unusual, yet very interesting topic! I'm glad this was recommended to me
Diary is important (even though I don't have it) because you will get to know in the future- what you felt exactly at that moment because as time passes on you forget the exact feeling and cannot accurately write it down or explain to someone, exactly.
This is pretty cool. I struggle with keeping a diary. I always have… more so now with the time demands of life. But this has inspired me to put forth the effort. Journal entries are gold and gems in a sense… one day they may be buried and rediscovered.
Yes Sally!!So proud to know you!!greetz&respect from the Netherlands 👋🏼☺️👍🏼🌈
Wow!Very inspiring!I never had enough patience for keeping a diary, it always feels like my thoughts are racing a hundred times faster than I can write. It's like I can not catch my thoughts. Thank you for sharing your experiences with us!
Beautiful and I have kept a dairy for 35 years and I wonder if anybody will read it and now I know they will… thank you..
This is my absolute favorite ted talk. Thank you for doing this and sharing your story, you were amazing!❤👏👏
This video has a big benefits for me because it showed me a lot of things was hide about reading , so i deepley believe in books and diaries this is gave me an age on my age .
You're awesome Sally, thank you for sharing!
One day, maybe someone can read my diary.... I started mine 20+ years ago. I mostly vent. I guess I better start writing happy things in there too...
I'm currently writing this novel in the form of a diary. A boy who is madly in love with his friend realizes soon enough that his longing and desperation are in fact hidden. She is clueless. He, on the other hand, convinces himself that he can in fact read her mind. It's a mind-twisting adventure as they seek out to follow a man who they know little about just to be abandoned in a small town where he has to learn human principles such as basic needs like love and feeling love and empathy; something he has never learned before. He is constantly overwhelmed and sadly can't even express deep emotion due to trauma; he takes his own life. She continues his story from her perspective, analyzing his diary.
I think this video will be a tremendous tool I can use to help with idea building so I mean if you all have any ideas or visualizations PLEASE comment back!
pretty neat experience. thank you for sharing
It's 2022 and I think I'll be trying my hands on a dairy as a new year resolution. Wish me luck!
Gotta dust the blank half written diaries that are lurking around my house, Phew!
So beautiful Sally! Thank you for sharing! 🙏❤️
Thank you, you gave me a new perspective regarding writing diaries. Maybe someday I would too write the story of my life.
Great testimony of passion. One of the best Ted Talks. Gina in lights.
Real testimonial historical information! Thank you for sharing this!
Hi 👋 Ozzy, how are you doing?
That gave me chills and some faith in humanity. Go Sally!
One of my favorite videos ever 🎉
I video diary I have over 100 videos documenting my most painful moments I talk about alone when my husband and I separated I asked him to vlog his thoughts we could swap videos at the end of our time apart then we could understood what we went through. Now I feel it’s so personal I can’t watch I’m not ready it’s so raw painful and horrible what I’ve been through
Her job is the dream job I always wanted but never knew existed till now ‼️. Why is my life not full of these amazing peoples diaries 😭
I just realized this was just posted... wow. I have lots of video diaries too.. hammered too.. kinda cause I knew someone would relate and my stages of grief would help them navigate their own.
I have spoke at events about the loss of culture and how it has saved me... and here we are in a pandemic. And I get it.. I'm so thrilled I'm here. I love all the comments... I'm so moved!!!!
Hi 👋 Bridget, how are you doing?
@@patrickmckinley6679 not bad.. you?
I'm not sure why you reaching out here.
@@Brdsht Am fine Bridget, where are you texting from?
I really resonated with this as my mom passed away and my dad moved without telling anyone and everyone moved on apart from me
I have done extensive geneaological research of my family....over and over they have had to restart their lives after the Depression, WWII, after the American Civil War, after the English Civil War, after deaths on the battlefields of Scotland...Lords,,knights, commoners, Robert the Bruce and HIS ancestors...four kings of Scotland...life was not glamourous even for the high born...it was struggle, conflict, and often ruin...what is missing are the personal.stories , the economic and political ones survive. But how were their marrieges, what were the parental and child relationships like what were their daily lives? These, only diaries would tell. Wills etc tell of their possessions but we all know possessions are little comfort in life omce we are not starving and there is a roof above us...it is the PEOPLE we care most for who.flesh out our lives...and THAT is what diaries tell us.
I started keeping a journal/sketchbook for a year now. I draw in it and write whenever I feel the need. I've been severely depressed for about five years now. In just a year the sketchbook has seen the absolute worst of me. In just a year I've also improved drastically with art. Due to the depression my brain's very frazzled and memories and years blend into an incomprehensible mess, my sketchbook is like a timeline where I can know when something happened. "Huh, this thing happened yesterday? I thought that was a month ago!" My biggest regret is the I hadn't started earlier. There's so many thoughts and feelings I don't remember that are just gone because I hadn't started earlier. I started last December, if i had even just started a few months prior I could've had some recounting of visiting a hospital, though I do have two scribbles about the fear on my iPad proving that what happened wasn't just my imagination. Drawings and words hold memories, it's truly incredible. I'm on my 7th sketchbook/journal now and very soon will be on my 8th
this comment could pass as a diary entry on its own right there haha
just add the time and date.
there were so many invaluable lessons i would've forgotten if it weren't for journaling/ keeping a diary- it's important in that regard as well.
it sounds to me that you drew your profile picture on your own, it genuinely looks amazing and alive
if it wasn't you who drew it- awkward.
@@shutnawi6635 thank you so much! And yeah, i do write like that in my journal! It's all just a stream of consciousness. And yes, I did draw my profile pic! I'm also an animator and i make many other things! My sketchbook has also been great for not only my thoughts, but also developing ideas and drawings!
@@FrilledMayfly_AmberlyFerrule holy lord your whole channel is a piece of art. i'm happy you somehow started doing it. i hope to see your name on some popular drawings one day.
That was a great talk. I also keep written and online entries. What she says is very true
Self contained grief is self empowering. What is self destructive is spineless lack of fortitude and self-possession.
"What is most personal is most universal." - Carl Rogers
Im literally crying... I am not alone
that was really amazing. thank u for this ted talk
Fascinating and so incredibly moving ❤
I have some from when I was 17.. then all the way through to 2018 after my 2nd partner passed. Took his life.... so strange to read them...I want to share them all.
"the woman was me" my jaw dropped for very long time
This makes me proud to have a whole collection of diaries since 11
This ted talk has inspired me to go out and get a diary
Yes! Congratulations and I hope your diary adventure is amazing and everything you hope it to be.
I've always been more interested in the future as opposed to the inalterable past. The people in the past had their time. But this is OUR time. This is our NOW. The past is theirs - the now and the future is ours, and that is what we should focus on. It's all we have that is ours.
Yes, although there is the saying “those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” In learning about the past we learn wisdom for the future.
Hi 👋 Stacy, how are you doing?
"What I’ve learned from reading over 10,000 diaries" i learned that im very nosy
I miss you Ray Anthony Miller, so does our children, please help us find ourselves, Titusville, Florida, you were amazing!
My girlfriend thinks I'm nosy ... well, that's what she keeps scribbling in her diary.
This reminded me slightly of the book 84 Charing Cross road, I read it when I was younger and found it extremely fascinating
@12:19 that smile says it all my guy ;)