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Many people think about writing a diary, especially at New Year. Some start. Some even keep it up. But why write, and for whom?
许多人都有写日记的打算，尤其是在新年之际。有些人开始写了。有些人甚至能坚持下来。但为什么要写日记，日记又是为谁而写呢？
Whether a novice facing a blank page or a seasoned scribbler with years of good meals and gossip in irregular notebooks, almost any diarist has asked themselves that question.
无论是面对一张白纸的新手，还是多年来在笔记本上不定期记录了许多美食和传闻的经验丰富的写手，几乎所有写日记的人都会问自己这个问题。
Sally Bayley of the University of Oxford, author of “The Private Life of the Diary”, regards sharing on social media as the antithesis of diary-keeping. The journal is “an attempt to be honest with yourself”.
牛津大学的萨莉·贝利是《日记的私生活》一书的作者，她认为在社交媒体上分享生活与写日记是对立的。写日记是“尝试对自己以诚相待”。
It is “an internal territory, which you are mapping onto the page”, inseparable from privacy. Even Sylvia Plath, a “theatrical individual”, Dr Bayley notes, wrote a diary in order to “generate a voice in private”.
它是“内心的疆域，被你映射到纸页上”，与隐私密不可分。贝利博士指出，即使是西尔维娅·普拉斯这样的“个性夸张的人”，写日记也是为了“在私下发出声音”。
Yet diaries have also long been shared, if more discreetly than on TikTok. Keeping a journal rose in popularity in the 19th century, especially among women.
然而，人们很早就开始分享日记了，只是比TikTok上的做法更谨慎一些。在19世纪，写日记变得流行起来，尤其是在女性中。
According to Cynthia Huff, an academic specialist in Victorian culture, diary-sharing then was “extremely common”.
研究维多利亚时代文化的专家辛西娅·赫夫表示，当时分享日记“非常普遍”。
Diaries were read aloud, sent to friends or left open for visitors to peruse. “That distinction between public and private really doesn’t hold at all,” says Professor Huff. Some diaries served practical uses, sharing advice on self-improvement, pregnancy or childbirth.
日记被大声朗读出来、送给朋友、翻开供访客细读。赫夫教授说：“这种公开与私密之间的区别根本站不住脚。”因为一些日记有实际用途，分享了关于自我提升、怀孕或分娩的建议。
British women in the colonies often sent diaries back home. They were “creating an extended family through these diaries” and fostering an ocean-spanning sense of Englishness.
在殖民地的英国妇女经常把日记寄回家乡。她们“通过这些日记创造了延伸的家庭”，并促进了一种跨越海洋的英国特色的形成。
Many journal videos also create a sense of community. They share stories of isolation: of suffering homophobia, struggles with body image or early romantic obsessions.
许多日记视频也创造了一种社群氛围。他们分享自己曾感到孤立无援的故事：对同性恋感到恐惧，因为身材外形而苦恼不堪，或早些时候对某人的狂热迷恋。
They poke fun at the distorted expectations of youth and the disappointments of adulthood, with the ear of sympathetic strangers.
他们对青春期时扭曲的期望和成年后的失望进行自嘲，观看视频的陌生人对此抱以同情态度。
Some diary-sharers go further. At Queer Diary, a series of events across Britain begun in 2020 by Beth Watson, a performer, LGBTQ adults read their old diaries to a live audience.
一些日记分享者走得更远。演员贝丝·沃森于2020年开始在英国各地举办“酷儿日记”活动，让LGBTQ成年人向现场观众朗读他们以前写的日记。
The drama, confusion and mayhem of teenage life are performed to a sympathetic crowd. The celebration, Ms Watson says, is as important as the reflection.
将青春期生活中的戏剧性、困惑和混乱演绎给具有同情心的人们。沃森表示，这种庆祝活动和写日记记录同等重要。
The symbiosis of secrecy and celebration was perhaps best understood by Anais Nin, a 20th-century French-born American whose diary was an unapologetic exercise in self-creation.
阿奈伊·宁或许最能理解这种私密故事与公开庆祝的共生关系，她是一位20世纪出生于法国的美国人，她的日记就是毫不让步的自我创造活动。
“I am in my Journal, and in my Journal only, nowhere else. Nothing shows on the outside. Perhaps I do not exist except as a fantastic character in this story.”
“我存在于我的日记里，而且只存在于日记里，不存在于任何其他地方。日记之外并不显示任何的我。也许除了作为这个故事中的奇妙角色之外，我并不存在。”
“We write to taste life twice,” Nin wrote, “in the moment and in retrospection.” She spent her last years reading her diaries to worshipping crowds. Like today’s influencers, she knew that retrospection tastes much sweeter in company.
“我们写作是为了品味生活两次，”宁写道，“一次是在当下，一次是在回顾往事时。”她在生命的最后几年里一直在给她的崇拜者们朗读日记。像如今的网红一样，她知道比起独自追忆，众人相聚品尝的回忆味道要甜美得多。
