Meta-notebook Beings

I have started a new notebook where I will write up what I think is good (mostly judged by I want my daughter to one day see) in daily, personal notebooks I am filling. 

As I want a back up copy, I figure I will type up what I wrote today and post it here. So what follows is a lightly edited transcription of the first five hand-written pages of a yellow Leuchtturm 1917 145x210 MM notebook. 

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First, from a black Piccadilly hardback notebook. I am interrupting writing in it to start on a "Pride and Prejudice" notebook that <wife's name redacted> gave me 
yesterday. 

This notebook was ... notable for being where I experimented with layout to find what I like. 

The right side is for happy moments and impressions. I have settled also in doing those in cursive with nice pens. 

Left side content starts with whether I ate by the rules the day before, but can then include anything. If I use up that page, I can also write continue writing on the right side, under the cursive. 

Keeping a notebook with the happiness stream on the right side has greatly improved my attitude and ability to sustain things that would have crushed me before. 

Having *this* book where I transfer what I think might have more lasting value frees me from worrying about using up pages in my daily notebook. 

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Notes on the notebook book -- "The Notebook" by Roland Allen. 

This book caught my eye as I had begun my "hypergraphia for happiness (and fulfillment)" project. 

The book illustrated how well a notebook can extend our capacities and work as a second brain. But I think some of the history itself will instruct and amuse. 

The East had paper, but used it in applications other than writing. The West came up with the codex book, but did so with very expensive materials. (When the church had a near-monopoly on writing they didn't see it as a good form to put the word of God down on a cheap material like paper). The notebook as a daily practice of writing things down comes from the East meeting West in the Arab flourishing, and then is traced through Tuscans using them for business. Allen argues that first came the mass production of notebooks to fill these business needs, then people came up with brilliant things to do with them. 

Not the order Allen choose, but I wish to start with Da Vinci's notebooks. 

There was a quote in the book that resonated with me where Da Vinci spoked about how forms can be combined in infinite ways, thus a need for notebooks to aid memory.

... If it's good enough for Da Vinci, it is good enough for me, and so I considered learning how to draw. But, either way, I leave this sub topic with this pitch: want to be a genius? Want to see the world as endlessly fascinating? No guilt if the answer is "no," but if "yes" -- keep a notebook. 

In Renaissance Florence notebooks were for everybody, though. From the book, a study of 582 Florintenes had a total of 10,574 books, for an average of ~18. Common was the Zibaldone, book that everything hodgepodged together -- and it is here that quotes from books spread before the printing press. Allen notes bits of Dante as a key example.

... My advice: write down anything, even everything. Doing this you can notice, record, and reflect. 

Heap it up. You can always index and distill later. 

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Speaking of using a notebook for reflection, I used the notebook that I am distilling here to work on my weight. More general lesson: daily accountability is a subtly good thing. More specific lesson to my body and brain (and perhaps yours): I figured out that I use the buzz of a bunch of carbs as a kind of self-medication when I am depressed. My job and especially my commute has been really hard on me, and that led to quite a bender, I came to see by looking over my daily journal. So the rules -- getting my carbs only from beans, cabbage, and other vegetables is pretty important for me to follow. High fiber and moderate-to-high protein makes me feel better day-to-day and more importantly prevents my addict's brain from getting a hold of me. 

<child's name redacted>, you need to watch yourself. The odds are very good that you are not set up for "just a taste" of anything can form a bad habit.