I have always been obsessed with notebooks. I love the promise offered by a new notebook: the potential hidden in its unfilled pages, the space for new knowledge, insights, observations, thoughts and ideas.
Even as I eliminate most forms of paper, there are a few analog tools that I cannot give up. Number one on the list is a physical notebook.
I can hardly pass a notebook display without stopping to look at the different variations. There are so many options: grid patterns, dots, ruled lines, plain pages. Heavy pages for serious sketching. I’ve always gravitated towards notebooks with ruled lines.
For the past few years, I’ve been using an Evernote Moleskine notebook. I’m on my fifth notebook, and each time I’ve needed a new one, I’ve purchased the same black notebook with ruled lines. My current notebook has only a few pages left, so I stopped at the Moleskine store near my apartment to pick up a new notebook.
So here I am, standing in the Moleskine store at the Evernote section. And I find myself drawn to the style with the grid designs on the page (officially known as the “squared” style).
I pick it up to hold it in my hand. I fee its energy.
It’s not the first time that the squared notebook has called to me. This happened when I went for my last notebook too. There is something in the grid pattern that is pulling me: perhaps a subliminal promise of more freedom to sketch as well as write?
And yet a piece of me wonders if fears that (just being honest) I will feel constrained by pages and pages of little squares.
Will the small boxes unleash my creativity by allowing me to draw outside the framework of ruled lines, or will they constrain me and make me feel boxed in?
There is only one way to know, of course.
I stand at the display, a ruled notebook in my right hand, a grid notebook in my left hand. I feel the penetrating gaze of the shop clerk, silently judging me for taking an eternity to select a simple notebook. Or, maybe I am judging myself.
Selecting a notebook hardly seems like something to ponder so deeply.
It’s just a notebook.
What’s the worst that can happen? I decide I don’t like the grid pattern and I go back to the ruled lines?
The cost of a Moleskine notebook may be higher than other notebooks, but in the bigger context it is a minor investment.
I think about the 50-hour intensive training I did last week, on Energy and the Subtle Body. The investment there was much greater, and I did not spend nearly as much time engaging in an internal debate around it like I’m doing here.
And yet here I stand at the display, contemplating.
This isn’t a high risk situation, a voice reminds me.
It is just a notebook.
And yet, it’s not just a notebook.
A notebook is the repository for my ideas and thoughts. It’s a companion.
If you love notebooks, maybe you understand this.
As I stand here at the display, I inquire within. And I find what’s beneath the hesitation.
The ruled lines are what I know so well. I know how to work within their parameters and where I can violate their structure. A grid layout is foreign territory for me. It’s a new landscape to navigate. How will I write within the pages of the grid? How will I sketch? Where will I put the date or the heading of my note? There are so many unknowns. So many little quirks of note-taking that I will need to re-learn in this foreign notebook.
Ahhh… interesting.
My decision to register for a 50-hour intensive training was swift and certain, while buying a new notebook was filled with hesitation and doubt, even though the training was a far bigger investment.
I release any trace of self-judgment, and embrace this information. Everything tells me something.
This it’s not about the notebook. Not at all.
It’s about what I can learn about myself in any moment, when I dare to bring presence to my experience and examine what is happening within myself in the moment. I stood there with it, embracing the feeling and diving deeper into an understanding of myself.
In the end, that’s what this is about.
And then I bought the notebook. The grid notebook.
Maybe I will love it. Maybe I will hate it. Maybe I will be indifferent (ok, probably not this one).
Definitely I will learn something.
Do you have a preferred notebook style? Ruled lines? Grid? Dots? Blank page? I’d love to know what you use!
Love it? Hate it? What do you think? Don't hold back...