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Precious humans,
I wanted to share a book with you that has been wildly inspiring to me the past few months: Great Diaries: The world’s most remarkable diaries, journals, notebooks and letters published by DK. (In the US, it’s published as “Remarkable Diaries instead).
It’s a fascinating collection of journals beginning with the oldest on record (thousands of years old). They are sourced from a variety of countries and cultures, and are both fascinating looks into famous people’s diaries and anonymous everyday people throughout the ages.
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Let’s start with the Journaling Overachiever himself, Leonardo da Vinci. We get it dude, you are a motherfucking geniusssss. I dig how he’s so clearly just trying to FIGURE SHIT OUT in his pages though. Baby grow in thick capsule, yes?
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Another overachiever. Ole Charlie Darwin.
But I fucking LOVE those little spidery marks. That’s him thinking through his theory of evolution by representing surviving lineages of species with a fine line at the end of a branch.
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An artist, Delacroix travelled and kept a watercolour journal that later informed his paintings. Those paintings plus words… they give me life!
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Oh I adored this one. An entrepreneur from the 1800s called both “Anne Lister” and “Gentleman Jack,” and kept an extended diary about their homosexuality.
I love, and only love, the fairer sex… my heart revolts from any other love than theirs.
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Explorers of the USA map out a river over hundreds of kilometres.
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An explorer takes notes and makes rudimentary notes about wildlife and fishtraps.
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This wildly illustrated book from the 1500s by a fishmonger documenting sea life.
There are many, many, many more… and I had a hard time deciding what to include in here. There are more modern journals included as well – these are the ones I found most fascinating.
I’ve pored over every page, reading a couple pages each day while I eat soup for lunch. It’s astonishing and beautiful, and reminds me of how important my own journals are. That the simple act of having a place to record life, and work through my own ideas and thoughts is revolutionary.
And that I am a part of an important lineage… of people trying to figure shit out on paper, and documenting this rare, brilliant world we live in.
Big love,
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