• Spend some time posting stuff in the !journaling@sh.itjust.works, hopefully encouraging members to participate more. Things have started to move in the right direction which makes me even more convinced there are a lot more people that could share real good/interesting/useful/fun content. One just needs to find how to encourage them.
• Write a letter and send it to a friend, the old-school snail mail way.
• Read (a paper book) and write (on sheets of paper, with a fountain pen). Yep, I try to spend as much time as I can away from any screen.
• Do chores. Yeah! (Don’t tell anyone, I cheated as little as I started the laundry today already)
• Get over that nasty cold I got a couple days ago.
• If that cold allows, get out for my daily walks.
• Last but certainly not not least, spend as much time as I can with my spouse, being silly together. It doesn’t matter if we’re well into our 50s and are supposed to be serious and all that, or if we’ve been silly together for 25 years already, it’s always a lot of fun ;)

If you need help I could make a tutorial

I’ve been thinking a lot more about your proposition. And I think I have now a clear idea how we could put your tutorial to good use right here, have it readily accessible to anyone. So, if you’re still OK to write it, by all means, do it. Hopefully, that could be the first of an exciting new series too… I hope I’ll be able to write a little more about that soon, but don’t wait for me ;)

PS: if you any question or whatever feel free to send me a PM, or to reach me right here if you prefer we discuss it publicly for anyone to participate.

If nobody had participated in a year, nobody has had more interest into making it something good than you. I’m sure you can only make it better

Before I quit posting on reddit to move on Lemmy I was much more, like a lot more, a commenting type of user than a creator of new posts. So, that’s a real revolution for me and I have my doubts how ‘better’ I can make anything, but I get your idea ;)

Just do what you like. If you get enough regulars where they say, hey, can we do this or that, worry about it then. For now, just show the group is alive and grow it organically. Keep the commenters engaged, and you’re golden.

Yep, I reckon you’re right and I should not worry too much about ‘maybes’.

Thx!

All the time?

Come here to say that.

I now have accepted as a fact that we’re smarter together, my Zettel and I. But I was really skeptical at first and it a true slap in the face when I was forced to realize how helpful this sucker was.

A couple months into it I was sold to the idea, and the more I have been using it since then the more I have been convinced I should have started using it decades ago, and that we should have been taught what that was all about back then, at the university. So much wasted time and opportunities, and interesting… surprises ;)

1. Nope, but I will to that.

2. That 's a good idea. With any luck that will encourage more creative people to submit their own stuff.

Thx.

I don’t.

I take it for what I consider it to be: a variable mix between a social contract (people agreeing on what is right and wrong (edit: healthy/not healthy), like with every single other thing going on in any society, whether I agree or not with them is not the point) and some common sense (what it means to be healthy (what sanity is referring to as far as I know) without arguing about abstract notions, like one would try to explain it to a young child maybe?)

So, really for me it’s an ad-hoc definition that has changed many times already, and will change again but it’s also something obvious that I would describe as being able to live among other people not in a perpetual state of anxiety… which may also incidentally imply I would not qualify as the best example of a sane person, who knows?

That’s a nice idea, subscribed!

Done. I will keep the old Mod account as Mod for a few days, just in case, but it will be ‘downgraded’ to a preferred normal user status asap ;)

Thx again for the suggestion.

Thx for your reply.

I super don’t make the rules around here but the mod seems to have gone MIA and I seem to be the most frequent poster.

I had a similar feeling on !journaling@sh.itjust.works (the community had been hibernating for around a year), I ended up contacting the team managing the instance where it is hosted and they agreed to give me the key so I could try do revitalize the community. BTW, you’re all welcome to have a look and join if you’re into journaling or if you ever considered keeping a journal, be it a paper or a digital one ;)

Sidebar seems to have absolutely nothing against it. It never specifies the PKMS must be digital. I say go for it. It is still in the spirit of the community.

That was my impression too, but I’d rather not create useless mess so I asked. I will take you answer as a green light and will try to post a little something. We will see how people react, if they do.

Thx a lot! That’s an excellent idea. Maybe I will do exactly that as, quite frankly, I’m not at all happy to see that capital ‘M’ next to my name whenever I post something. I would prefer to be a ‘simple’ user like any other community member.

Probably a silly question, but I’m far from being an expert at moderating: may I ask how you manage multiple accounts? You need to log in and log out every time you want to step in your mod uniform?

I’ll check that, thx. And thx for the offer! A tuto could certainly interest people, but I wonder if we should publish it here? I mean, it’s very technical and not really about journaling even if it can be used for it… Would you happen to have a blog, or maybe know another Lemmy community more dedicated to tech stuff like that? If so we could post a link to there (and I for sure would gladly read it) ;)

They could have made a (second) fortune selling vaseline, or some water-based lubricant, to their customers.

The less ‘digital services’ in my life, the better.

edit: forgot a word :p

Thx a lot for sharing those tips and resources!

From the 1st video (great advice from beginning to end). ‘Without you realizing it suddenly you will be writing with a tense grip again, and that’s when you just have to catch yourself… Now just relax your hand and start again’. This, 100%.

A big +1 for making breaks, it will help a lot. As can help adding that extra grip/thickness to a pen, even more so with thinner Bic/pencils. It’s a tool, it’s OK to customize and adapt it to our ow needs and usage.

EF nib being my favourite. I don’t think there are any shops selling nibs only here in Bordeaux (my french is not very good) but maybe I’ll buy a pack on ebay/amazon to upgrade my F and fatter ones

The thing with Lamy (and German nibs in general) is that they are fatter compared to similar Japanese ones… For people new to fountain pens, by large the majority of nibs will either be German-made or Japanese-made, no matter the brand of the pen and not considering customized nibs, and as a rule of thumb it’s admitted that for the exact same denomination, the Japanese ones will be thinner). So a Fine or an Extra Fine will more or less always be thinner on a Japanese nib. Does it matter? It depends how big and how small you write. The smaller your handwriting, the thinner you will want the nib to be.

All of that to say: I have a small handwriting and I find the Lamy Fine OK but already a tad too fat to my taste (and it’s just that: personal preferences), whereas I can use Japanese Fine without any issue. So, it helps to be able to try a fountain pen nib before committing to it, also don’t be afraid to try out various nibs from various origins to find the one that will suit you best ;)

Do you only/mostly write when journaling? I try to “journal” but I’m basically only drawing.

Yep, I mostly write. I’m trying to sketch a lot more but I’m so used to writing. It’s words, everywhere, and sketches here and there. I try to have at least a sketch per page. Alas, I’m not there yet. I hope this will help me to sketch more (and with more confidence): I’ve just subscribed to a sketching classes.

If you want to be really secure you can encrypt it. By hand it would be difficult,

And weak too, I’m afraid. As a kid I used to change names and avoid using certain words I knew would trigger my mother’s attention. It helped develop my imagination, but it did not work well ;)

On digital you may have an encrypted drive with a fake password.

How would you do that? I mean I know you can (we all should, I encrypt all mines even USB sticks) encrypt our drives but how would you do the fake/real password thing? That’s sounds clever.

Thx for your feedback!

I’m not sure what’s being referred to in the rules regarding, “Read the sticky” as there’s no stickied/pinned post so far as I can see.

Do you still read the sticky thing in the sidebar? There should not be any sticky/pinned anywhere, post and no mention of them.

At first I thought it was just a bug with my machine… As it keep randomly displaying the old sidebar, no matter what I do. It happens to me once a day even though I regularly republish the new sidebar :/

Here is what the new sidebar is supposed to look like now: https://imgur.com/a/yQHy11U . I just checked, that’s what I’m seeing right now (don’t mind teh dark theme I use, I’m only referring to the text/links). Tell me if it’s the old one you’re still seeing.

Going back to the main topic, I think the art communities are also a great touch for variety, as sketchbooks and the like can easily be understood as visual journaling, if you will.

Indeed :)

Thx!

Trying to revitalize !journaling@sh.itjust.works. So far, after maybe 3 weeks regularly posting stuff, I’m still the sole poster but members have started commenting which is already great and very encouraging. I’ve also noticed a few new subscribers joining the community, at least 10 (I forgot to note the initial number so it’s probably a little more than that), which I find very encouraging too.

That being said, I have zero idea what I’m doing (and how well), I just want to try. I asked for the community ‘lead’ (is that how I should say?) because, well, it had been inactive for a year or so. And because no one else asked for it. And because as a lifelong journaler myself I know how useful (and so much more than that) keeping a journal is. It was so sad to see it not moving at all, I wanted to give the community a chance to grow and become more active.

I’ve discovered Fedigrow this very morning and it feels like it’s exactly the place I didn’t now I urgently needed to find. I’ve started reading a few discussions and already grabbed a few cool ideas. Thx :)

Congrats, and a warm welcome to the FOMO-less club and to the omfg-had-no-idea-I-had-so-much-time-to-do-stuff club ;)

Imho, the most important tool/help anyone can get is to find other but as exciting stuff to do then to stare a the screen (phone or otherwise). For me, it was taking long walks (it also helped a lot put me back into batter physical shape), hobbies (like painting, scale models, music,…), or activities one enjoys and that don’t require the use of a screen. Cooking, writing, sketching, DIY, craft,…

The second most important tool would be to not hate yourself if/when you will fail. Try not to fail, obviously, but when it happens instead of hate and shame and anger (any impression this could be based on personal experience would be a pure 100% coincidence, this goes without saying) try to understand how and why you failed. So, you will be better prepared next time.

Edit like you mentioned, the support of your SO is a huge help too. My spouse was amazing in helping me get over my own addictions (not phone related, but addictions nonetheless).