Honesty vs. Judgment
The word “diary” implies a space of personal recollection and non-judgment. There is no right or wrong. It has one job, it’s a mirror. Now Rubin says:
“Everything we make can be [a diary], a personal reflection of who we are, in that moment of time. It doesn’t have to be the greatest you can ever do. It doesn’t have to have any expectation that it can change the world. It doesn’t have to sell a certain number of copies for any reason. It doesn’t have any of things. All it has is: I’m making this thing for me, and I want to do it to the best of my ability, to where I feel good about it, and it’s honest, honest of where I’m at.”
Is editing dishonest?
I resonate the idea with purging the chorus of false reasons (greatness, impact, sales) … but if you want to do something “to the best of your ability,” does that not imply the recursive act of looking at your work and judging it? I actually think self-criticism is one of the hardest and most honest things you can do.
Judgment is a profound force. It shouldn’t be your primary lens to reality, but it is an indispensable razor into the truth, and it’s something we ought to be grateful for: our whole society is built on it.