As I get closer to my actual retirement date, which is now within the next 20 months and likely within the next 12, I’m starting to figure out what I’ll do in my so-called “third act” after I retire. Writing is a clear goal, no problems there. Kayaking, hopefully. Astronomy, definitely. Travel is an easy yes, but I’m still figuring out what form that will take — RV? series of trips? Hard to say.

For my “personal” websites of ThePolyBlog.ca and PolyWogg.ca, I have a decent handle (I think) on the two sites, how I will use them, etc. But I was thinking about new posts for 2026, thinking of including a bit more personal journaling, and so I picked up some resources from the library and elsewhere for some “extra” things to go back and revisit from my long ago planning days for the blog.

Scott Green has a book in The Blokehead Series, “397 Journal Writing Prompts and Ideas” (2015), and I’m adapting it a bit from the original premise. It is about keeping a personal journal or diary, and that is pretty much what my ThePolyBlog site is — my online journal. While the prompts might prove useful, it was more Chapters 1-3 that interested me, as it deals with the basis of journaling in general, elements of a good journal, and the benefits of journaling.

I wanted to see if it captured my “zeitgeist”, so to speak.

In chapter 2, Green says:

For my sites, I think that breaks into two parts. First and foremost is why I write / journal at all; the second is why THESE topics.

Green suggests some reasons / benefits of journaling:

• It clears your mind;
• It helps you understand yourself better;
• It helps you remember what you’ve gone through;
• You get to remind yourself about the good things in life; and,
• You get to improve (/practice) your writing skills.

The fifth reason is fundamentally why I write anything. Because I can and because I want to get better. So writing is practice, in any form.

The third reason — remembering — is there in part for certain things, like travel or my photo gallery. The fourth is for experiences I want to capture when the moment is fresh, so I can revisit them later. And mostly positive, so sure, remember the good things.

For me, the real reason is a bit of 1 and 2, together. Yep, it helps me declutter my brain AND understand myself better, but that’s not really “it”.

Overall, writing about my life or ideas helps me understand the world. By working through descriptions, by choosing how to frame the explanation, by simply journaling at all and figuring it out in my brain so I can put it down on the page, I process my world. By figuring out how to explain myself to “others”, I sometimes surprise myself with what I actually think, not just what I was more unconsciously manifesting.

Oftentimes, it is that “something” bothers me — an opinion I heard that doesn’t seem quite right, but I can’t quite figure out why. Or a story that doesn’t sit well with me. OR THERE’S SOMEONE SAYING SOMETHING WRONG ON THE INTERNET and I can’t let it go mentally. I don’t care about the “issue”, I only care about why it is triggering something in my brain.

If I take speed cameras as an example, they bothered me. I wasn’t quite sure why. Safety? Good. Photo radar? Fine. Other uses? Fine. So why was it niggling at my brain? It took a bit for me to figure out before I eventually wrote about it in full. But writing about it helped crystallize my views. It helped me dig deeper into my thoughts around rights, minimalist government, efficacy in approaches, and limited use of heavy hammers where other tools work better. Writing helped me structure my thoughts more clearly.

In short, I do it primarily to help myself better understand the world. Secondarily, I write about stuff I already understand to help others have a possible framework to aid in their own understanding.

The question is…what parts of the world do I want to understand?

Stay tuned. That’s part of the mental reboot.