FROM cavemen’s drawings of animals on walls to internet blogs, for as long as people have been making marks on paper, they have been documenting what they do, see, feel, think, desire.
This urge became easier to fulfill when paper, pen, and ink became more affordable and accessible and higher levels of literacy became the norm rather than the exception. There have been several versions of the notebook, each with a different purpose.
Planners and daybooks are for making lists and schedules; they allow us to to bring order and some degree of control to our lives.
Diaries are for documenting, in chronological order, daily activities and occurrences, thoughts and feelings, wishes and dreams.
Friendship books, common in the 19th century, were collections of dedications, poems, and drawings from and autographs of friends. A version of this familiar to many of us is the “slumbook” of our youth, with each page pre-printed with questions such as “what’s your favorite color?” and “who is your crush?”
Regular notebooks are for preserving important bits of information; examples of these are school and work notebooks.
Sketchbooks are for drawings and other forms of illustration. For some it serves as a diary or daily log.
We’ve used one or more of these types of notebooks at some point and we are familiar with how to create them. However, there’s one type of notebook that may be unfamiliar to most—the commonplace book.
Before the internet and easy access to information, such a book was necessary if one were to recall things that mattered to them in some way. Scraps of poetry, aphorisms and saying, quotations, and passages of books were copied into these commonplace books.
In the 13th century, the Italians had a version called zibaldone, which means “a heap of things.” In addition to text, these notebooks contained sketches and drawings and random jottings such as lists, calculations, thoughts, meal logs.
“Commonplacing” was popular in Enlightenment-era Europe and America, where people transcribed from books and other sources the ideas that attracted them, going on to create their own personal philosophies from these collected concepts.
Bruce Lee refined and developed the philosophy that he was to turn into Jeet Kune Do by much the same technique. The famed martial artist kept a two-by-three inch notebook with him in which he wrote down poems, pupils’ phone numbers, training regimens, affirmations, and ideas.
In modern times, notebooks are often started but not finished. With good intentions to persevere, I’ve started many planners and diaries that ended abruptly three or four months later.
I first began a commonplace book on New Year’s Day of 2008. In it, over the years, I wrote poems, sayings, proverbs, aphorisms, postal addresses of friends abroad, online usernames and passwords, quilt patterns, recipes, the lyrics of Nessun Dorma in Italian and English translation, and other things that were of interest or significance to me.
One entry was a list of cheeky Latin phrases: “Stercus accidit (Shit happens).” “Si fractum non, sit noli id reficere (If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it).” “Sit vis vobiscum (May the Force be with you).”
I’d also jotted down a lengthy list of archaic words, no longer used but with such fine nuances of meaning that I would applaud their return to regular usage: “blateration” (blabber, chatter); “obstrigillate” (to oppose, to resist); “omniregency” (state of complete authority). To use these in a sentence that is relevant to present times is easy: “Trump and Duterte’s ill-considered blateration provoked many citizens of their countries to obstrigillate against them lest they impose an omniregency led by themselves.”
What are the benefits of keeping a commonplace book?
It is a repository of information that you will otherwise find difficult to retrieve. It reminds you of what you were like at a certain time in your life through the things were important to you or inspired you. It imposes a discipline on thinking through writing—studies have proven that writing helps us process thoughts more effectively.
All you need to start commonplacing is a notebook and a pen. After that, the rest is up to you.
Dr. Ortuoste is a California-based writer. Follow her on Facebook: Jenny Ortuoste, Twitter: @jennyortuoste, Instagram: @jensdecember, @artuoste
