Journaling

Big Sky makes frequent mention of journaling as a family of tools, methodologies and techniques. Additionally it turns to the processes of journaling as an exploration and expression of design, creativity and art. Along the way it provides thought experiments and approaches to help build personalized “systems” of journaling, some methodologies and ways to stimulate, augment, record, explore, study and create with the process. Some of this is a continuation of work which appears in and around the Designs on Knowledge Project.

Why? Why does a site about Cognitive Science, a site that focuses on "Building a Psychology of Learning, Self-Improvement and Happiness" have a strong focus on journaling, on capturing internal and external experience through writing, photography and other media?

Building a Psychology requires the ability to explore, observe, and model human cognition and experience. The most immediate laboratory available to any of us is our own mind, our own experience (subjective, objective and everything in between), our own memories, our personal knowledge. To make use of this laboratory we do well to develop tools, practices and methodologies. Journaling and related methodologies and experiences provides an essential, explosively rich and infinitely extensible set of resources. It is a window and a doorway to the individual exploration of our internal universes and viewport to the stellar nursery of creativity and self-expression.

There are many kinds of journaling methods and techniques. This is good news! Introspection can become stale and unproductive very quickly. In a way, our minds are designed to defeat direct observation. Introspection can also interfere with (confound) the things we are trying to observe. Those of us who “think about thinking” know this from experience. “Observer Effects” are everywhere in Psychology. So, we want to have a broad range of tools at our disposal. We also want to take advantage, where and when appropriate, of new technologies to help us probe, capture and augment our observations of our inner worlds. Technologies and techniques which help us explore our brains\minds, and the cognitive landscapes that are embedded in them, are expanding rapidly! Our context in terms of technology, experience and learning is changing rapidly. Taking a fresh look how we do and could interact with it all - how we interface our external universe with our internal universe, is always worthwhile.

Here are some ways journaling is used under The Big Sky.

  • Immediacy: You are encouraged to take very simple and sustainable approaches to journaling which you can use immediately and which will always pay some benefits no matter how much or how long you do it. We will recommend a few ways to start and overtime will provide a more and more rich set of tools, tips and methodologies which can be adapted and personalized.

    Start journaling about a few rudimentary issues immediately. Right now - stop reading - take 2 minutes - write down 3 ideas about what you think journaling is and how it might be used.

  • As a user of this website: You are encouraged to use journaling to interact with the concepts on this web site, to explore them as they are introduced and to more deeply process them over time. Journaling appears as a skill in playing the Big Sky Game and in exploring the Big Sky Mountains.

    In addition journaling is used to

    • Help you build your Psychology of Learning, augment self-improvement and grow your happiness.

    • Provide a family of tools to explore ways to discover, plan, augment and get the most out of your own self-directed learning.

    • Provide a family of tools to explore Knowledge Engineering process.

    • Explore our semantic networks, note-taking, integration of concepts between disciplines and learning experiences.

    • Explore and build thinking skills

    • Create materials for self-quizzing

    • Explore the universe within. For example: we use journaling to explore both the mechanics and the experience of human memory.

    • Explore the use of personal media records (writing, photography, video) and their utilization in creative expression. This focuses heavily on photo-journaling.

    • Journaling is used to explore and support key concepts found in Rational Emotive Psychology

  • Personalization: Lastly, we encourage you to use your time under the Big Sky to adapt, tweak and design your own journaling style, methods and experiences.

Resources