should i just get a diary?

Mar 19, 2025

start thinking out loud. use the button to carve a space that is yours.

i’ve asked myself this question more times than i can count. maybe it would be easier. maybe it would be safer. maybe it would keep me from spiralling into the uncomfortable space of asking whether anything i have to say actually matters.

i’ve spent a lot of time unsure of my voice, of whether it carries weight, of whether it even has a place. i don’t think i ever truly learned how to trust my thoughts as valuable. i learned how to argue, how to analyse, how to present a case, but the deeper question—why should people listen to me?—has always loomed in the background.

when you exist in multiple intersecting identities, the world gives you mixed messages about your right to speak. i have been told to be grateful, to not rock the boat, to accept that the world will not change just because i want it to. i have felt the pressure to be palatable, to be agreeable, to not be too loud or too insistent in my convictions. i have felt like an outsider, told that my identity is not real enough to be taken seriously, that it is either a phase or a betrayal. i have spent years watching people who look nothing like me decide how the world should work, how people like me should live, and i have often wondered: where do i fit in?

so, should i just get a diary? should i keep my thoughts to myself, safe and sound, locked away from scrutiny and rejection?

for a long time, that felt like the best option. i have always been someone who thinks too much, who holds onto ideas long after they should have let them go, who turns over conversations in their head trying to find the hidden meaning. and yet, i have also been someone deeply afraid of being wrong. afraid of speaking with too much certainty, of making a claim only to be laughed at, dismissed, or worse—proven incorrect in a way that feels humiliating.

i used to think that in order to say something publicly, i had to be the smartest person in the room. i had to have airtight logic, the best evidence, an argument so perfect that no one could challenge it. but what i have come to realise is that this expectation is not only unrealistic—it is suffocating. no one actually thinks in finished essays, fully footnoted and ready for peer review. we think in half-formed ideas, in contradictions, in the quiet nagging feeling that something isn’t quite right but we don’t yet have the words for it.

and that, i think, is where writing comes in. not to prove a point, not to declare myself an authority, but to think in public. to make space for uncertainty, for exploration, for the kind of messy, nonlinear processing that actually reflects how we experience the world.

but even then, even with that realisation, there was another fear: who would care?

the internet is full of voices, full of people saying things loudly and confidently. some of them are brilliant. some of them are not. some are just loud for the sake of being loud. i have never wanted to be the kind of person who speaks just to hear themselves talk.

but then i realised something: not having a niche is a niche. not fitting neatly into a category, not dedicating myself to one specific mode of thinking, not branding myself as an expert in one rigidly defined area—that, in itself, is worth exploring.

because the truth is, i don’t just care about one thing. i care about philosophy and how to build better moral systems. i care about politics and why, despite studying it, i find it increasingly frustrating and empty. i care about music, about how a single song can change the trajectory of your day, how sound can make you feel something words never could. i care about identity, about what it means to belong, about how race and gender and sexuality shape the way we move through the world. i care about burnout, about the ways we push ourselves too hard, about the exhaustion of trying to be everything at once.

and maybe, just maybe, that is enough.

i think, for a long time, i felt like my existence had to be justified. that in a predominantly white academic space, i had to be exceptional. that

i had to be definitive and unwavering in my identity, lest people think i was confused. that as a woman, i had to be strong but not aggressive, confident but not arrogant. that i had to earn the right to take up space, to be seen, to be heard.

but i am tired of performing credibility.

i want to write because writing is the one place i have ever felt free. because it is the only space where i do not have to ask permission to exist. because it allows me to be contradictory and questioning and insecure and bold all at once. because i do not want to live a life where my thoughts are only ever written in the margins of notebooks, never shared, never given the chance to be anything more.