Should homeless persons write in a diary? What would they say in it? What are the traditions of diary writing? These and many questions arise as we consider these questions. In addition to the question: “Where would unhoused persons keep their diaries, full of their thoughts and hopes?” It could take a courageous person indeed!
Who is brave enough to write their own diary? And moreover, is it indeed worth writing a diary when you consider the perils? After all, a diary where you jot down your most inner thoughts, feelings and soul can be perused by unwanted visitors such as relatives, friends, and even officials.
If it is highly problematic for people with a roof over their head to guard their diary from intruders, then imagine the challenges a homeless person can face! Can a homeless person sleeping rough keep a diary? For instance, a person sleeping in a tent can have his possessions ransacked and trashed in a bin where the contents will be rudely discarded in some distant garbage dump!
Hans Christian Andersen was sharply perceptive in pointing out that when a person died their diaries and notes often “end up in the bin.” In his story “Aunt Toothache,” Anderson wrote how one diary “had gone out into the world as wrapping paper for salted herring, batter and green soap. They had fulfilled their destiny and... Everything ends up in the bin.”
Is it worth a child keeping a diary when his or her parents come to clean up their room and find it, and open the pages? It is far worse if you live under the constant eye of a dictatorship where “Walls have ears” and there is practically no private space. During the years of repression in the Soviet Union people wrote down their secret thoughts which they would never express in public in their diaries. The diary was the only friend they could trust when people were unsure who was a police informer or not.
The historian Orlando Figes writes that “People sought refuge in a private world of truth. Some people took to diary-writing during the 'Great Terror.' In spite of all the risks, keeping a diary was a way to carve out a private realm free of dissembling, to voice one's doubts and fears at a time when it was “dangerous to speak.” In other words, it was more dangerous to speak openly than to keep a diary! Nevertheless, Figes writes about the case of the writer Prishvin who was anxious that his diary would not fall into the hands of the secret police and the contents used against him. So he went to the trouble of writing his words in microscopic scrawl hardly legible to a magnifying glass in the event the police might seize it. {See pages 255 -256 of “The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia,” by Orlando Figes, London: Penguin Books, 2007.} In this respect, bad handwriting which is ineligible can be a blessing!
But what do we mean by a diary?
Well, firstly, a diary is usually meant to be a record of a person's day to day lives in a chronological order which follows some kind of dates. But a second meaning is as a calendar, work planner or even notebook. But what if a person uses a diary in way which blurs those distinctions? For instance, if you read the diaries of Franz Kafka they consist of around 13 notebooks consisting not only of what happened to him but unfinished short stories, finished short stories which never saw publication, and notes taken from a history book on the fate of horses during the 1812 invasion of Russia.
Can those notebooks actually be regarded as genuine diaries? Max Brod the editor warns that a person is more likely to write down all the bad things which happened to them in a diary or the most striking events. This can read to a one-sided interpretation of Kafka's life as we can forget that Kafka did have a lot of pleasant moments in his life. His life was far from one never ending nightmare. This is because one of the main reasons people keep diaries are for therapeutic reasons. It is one of the best forms of self-therapy. A diary will never judge you, take offence at any comment you make or get upset. As the proverb goes, “Paper will put up with anything written upon it.” Note that paper never complains.
In this regard, it is instructive to read one of the most famous diaries of all time by Anne Frank—the child refugee who hid from the Nazis. At the beginning she tells her diary that “I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support.” Anne writes that paper has more patience than people. It is telling that in one entry she reveals, “Now I am back to the point that prompted me to keep a diary in the first place: I don't have a friend” {Page 6 of “The Diary of A Young Girl,” by Anne Frank, New York and London: Bantam Books, 1995 edition}. There is perhaps a moral here. If you don't have a priest, therapist or friend you can confide to: get a diary. It might turn out to be your best friend! It is worth noting that Anne Frank kept two diaries: Diary 'A' which was intended for publication and diary 'B' which comprised very intimate thoughts which was not to be published. Unfortunately, she died in a German concentration camp. Her father not only edited this diary but combined both diaries into one which was then subsequently published.
People question the value of writing a diary for posterity! They think that such diaries have a limited value when writing history because they can be too one-sided and subjective. The writer philosopher Jean Paul Sartre in his novel “Nausea” has his character Roquentin write, “I think that is the danger of keeping a diary: you exaggerate everything, you are on the lookout for and you continually stretch the truth” {page 9, Nausea, Jean Paul Sartre, Middlesex, England: Penguin Modern Classics, 1965}. He goes on to write that he can no longer recollect yesterday's events because he has already forgotten the most intricate details of events. But can any diary or book cover every facet of reality around you?
Despite the claim that a diary can't be wholly authentic, I wager that it can capture aspects of truth more frankly than other written works which are consciously made for future publication. Most diaries were not written for publication or posterity. The authors were not so much worried about being unread, as on the contrary, being read by people who would judge and condemn them. And the diaries of war veterans which were not intended for publication but consulted by historians help improve our view of history from the vantage point of the ordinary soldier 's direct experience.
Despite enormous hurdles, I think some of the homeless should at least attempt the feat of writing and keeping a diary. If they lose it, write another and another. This might not only help bolster their self-esteem but also provide them with some structured purpose, routine, and account of their lives. It also represents a voice which can help empower themselves.
To solve the security issues, some trusted advocates of the unhoused can play an important role in offering a safe place to keep their diaries. Such advocates should also be trusted not to read such diaries!
I think this is one favor a homeless advocate can do for a homeless author. Keeping the diary safe, and helping to guard the homeless person’s legacy, would be considered by most to be a rather honorable undertaking indeed. Note the words of Hans Christian Andersen: “Things often end up in the bin that shouldn't be in the bin” {page 411, “Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales,” London and New York: Penguin Classics, 2005 edition}.
Maybe a diary can help people heal.