Oscar Valdes

The Republican Senator

He’s in his office, in Washington D.C., thinking about his circumstances.
He’s not pleased.
The congressional hearings investigating the attack on the Capitol on January 6th are still going on. He wishes they would go away, but there they are, day after day.
Secretly – he hasn’t said a word about it to anyone – he wishes he’d had the guts that Liz Cheney has shown, taking a leading role in investigating Donald Trump’s part in the attack.
She is doing what she thinks needs to be done, not what her constituency wants her to do.
That’s the hard part, he thinks to himself. Going against your constituency.
‘It takes a certain kind of courage.’
‘The congressional investigation has uncovered enough, as if the facts themselves, as reported by the press at the time of the event, hadn’t been sufficient.’
‘Donald Trump had incited the crowd to march on the Capitol with the intention of disrupting the counting of the electoral ballots. Clearly an assault on democracy.’
Yet there he is, as Senator, sitting in his office, unable to say so.
A pang of shame fills him for a moment.
If he spoke out against Trump he’d face harsh criticism from his constituency. They would demand that he resign. And then, what would he do with his life?
All the attention he gets now would be gone.
No more ‘Senator, tell us about this, Senator, tell us about that…’ No more reporters chasing after him, photographers clicking their cameras, newspapers quoting him, lobbyists wanting his approval, trips here or there to investigate this or that, meetings with foreign leaders… and worst of all… losing the possibility of being picked for secretary of state or… dream of dreams… as a running mate for the presidency.
All he needs to do to keep those possibilities alive is to not criticize Trump.
All he needs is to simply keep lying to himself, repeating that on January 6th, Trump didn’t really incite his followers to march on capitol hill to disrupt the electoral ballot counting… that what he really was doing was asking his supporters to remind the ballot counters of their sacred duty to the country. Remind them to do the patriotic thing. But then things got out of hand.
‘But you cannot hang that on Trump,’ he repeats to himself.
‘The president would never, ever, try to disrupt the democratic process. Far from it, instead, Trump would offer his life to defend it. Because that’s who he is.’
The senator takes a deep breath. ‘It will blow over. I just have to wait it out. We all have to.’
‘I just don’t think I could live without all that attention I get every day.’
‘I’ll admit, it’s a little sad… to have become such attention junkie. But I would get very depressed if I didn’t have it. In a way, though, to have become so dependent on the opinions of my constituency is unsettling… I’m their mouthpiece.’
The thought of Liz Cheney comes to him again. ‘How can she do it? Surely, she won’t be reelected. So what will she do with her life?’
‘Hmm. Maybe, because of her willingness to disagree, she’ll get some nice offers to be a board member with some big companies. She’d get stock options and so forth. And she’d have that pride, that lasting satisfaction, that she’s made a name for herself. People might revile her, but they will remember her for her guts. That’s a nice way to be remembered.’
The Senator leans forward, rubs his face.
‘All is not lost. I could still change my mind.’
‘What makes matters worse is that I don’t think Trump will win the Republican nomination. There will be a big rift in the party and DeSantis will be chosen to run in 2024. But we won’t win the presidency, unless Biden screws up… but so far, unbelievably, he’s holding up.’
‘I don’t think we’ll win the presidency because Biden’s done a good job on the war in Ukraine… and I don’t think we’ll go into a recession… and if we do, it will be mild.’
The Senator stands up and goes to the window where he stands looking out.
‘But what if… I changed my mind and… came out in support of Liz Cheney?’
He smiles.
‘The phone wouldn’t stop ringing and right away Trump would endorse someone to run against me this Fall.’
He laughs.
‘My family would be all upset… but I’d explain and they’d settle down. I’d tell them that I have to do it for myself… for my self-respect. I’d figure out something to do with my time. It’s not like I haven’t earned a decent living before. And if, later on, I’d want to return to Washington, I’m sure I can find a job as a lobbyist.’
‘But do I have it in me to go against the pack?’
He looks out, a determined expression now coming to his face.
‘Deep inside, we’d all want to be like Liz Cheney… and maybe… just maybe… I’m due for a good fight in my life.’

Oscarvaldes.medium.com, apple podcasts

Are We Becoming More Violent?

Two friends, Craig and Walter, talk about the state of the nation.

Craig – Would you say that we’re becoming more violent?
Walter – Yes, I’d say that.
Craig – What do you think contributes to it?
Walter – The internet.
Craig – How so?
Walter – It’s now so easy to put anything you think of out there. Without the benefit of inner censors. So the most outlandish ideas get to circulate and gain supporters.
Soon enough people start making things up. Twisting facts. Selling fake news.
It’s odd. The greater ease of publication has led to less thinking rather than more thinking.
People are quicker to insult, to bash other people.
In democracies, inner censors are crucial, but that’s the task of a good education.
Leading up to the 2020 elections there was a news thread going around saying Joe Biden was a pedophile. I remember talking to an otherwise intelligent person and she swore it was true. She had seen it in a website, she said. I told the person those ideas were trash but she didn’t believe me.
‘I’ll send you the link,’ she replied. ‘Please don’t.’
Craig – Where do you think we’re heading?
Walter – More violence.
The church has failed. They’re in to preaching violence also. Take Iran. Salman Rushdie writes The Satanic Verses and the ayatollahs order him killed.
Craig – Have you read the book?
Walter – Parts of it. Rushdie is a very talented writer. Great command of the language. Amazing ease with words. He was making fun of religious beliefs, playing with them, taking artistic license, if you will, because that’s his talent. We need people to help us see religion in another light. But the ayatollahs saw his work as a great offense and issued an order to kill him.
It tells me those clerics are all closed minded. Men with fragile egos, their view of the world so narrow. It’s too bad they’re so many people in that nation who have not organized to revolt against the government.
So, on the one hand the church has failed us and on the other, people haven’t stepped up and learned to think for themselves. So you might say we’re in a transitional period, in a moral void.
I think we’re transitioning to discovering we have a mind. That we can think on our own. That we don’t have to wait for an ayatollah or a pope or a Putin or a Xi Jinping or a Narendra Modi or a Donald Trump or a Ron DeSantis to tell us how the cookie crumbles. It’s very sad to see the lack of intellectual independence in human beings.
In school there should be courses teaching us to think on our own. But the parents probably won’t allow it, because they may think the teachers are socialists. The parents, not able to think on their own, don’t want to allow their children to find their intellectual freedom.
We need more and more education early on. Teach us how to learn to manage envy, to be kinder to others.
Craig – So what do we do in the meantime?
Walter – With a few exceptions, we don’t have our best people in politics. The task of leadership is a civic duty. More of our best and brightest should be encouraged to run for office and so counter the professional politician with their set of alliances and bad habits.
We need leaders who can talk to us weekly and say, this is what is happening in our world, this is what needs to be done and why. It takes courage to do that.
We need men and women willing to lead and are not afraid of not getting reelected. People who can do what is best for our country regardless of whether it will be seen as popular or not.

Oscarvaldes.medium.com., apple podcasts

Salman Rushdie is Stabbed

The distinguished writer was stabbed in public yesterday, in Chautauqua, N.Y., as he prepared to speak to an audience on the subject of America as a place for freedom of expression.
He had just taken his seat when the assailant went up on stage and started stabbing him.
Early reports speak of serious injuries to the liver, arm and the loss of an eye.
A religious edict to kill Mr Rushdie was issued in 1989, a year after the publication of his ‘Satanic Verses’ which was seen by Muslim authorities as blasphemous.
Iran’s current leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has said that the edict to kill the writer remained valid.
And now the assault has happened.
While living in Britain the author had police protection for 9 years. He’s lived in the US for the last 20 years both writing and teaching.
We’re told by the Chautauqua Institution, the host for the event, that state troopers were in attendance, for security purposes. I wonder why they weren’t near the stage, to bar a potential assailant. Or did they think the assailant would come down the hall draped in an Iranian flag as he shouted ‘death to Rushdie!’
Someone was not doing their job.
Recently, our Justice department charged an Iranian national with plotting to murder former security adviser Michael Bolton. Luckily, that action was intercepted.
But who will be next?
And so I ask, what’s the point of proceeding with a nuclear deal with Iran?
They can’t be trusted, no matter what they say or sign.
As those negotiations proceed, they’re starting to send drones to Russians so more Ukrainians will get killed.
Iranians are not hiding anything from us. They are being very clear. It is us that need to wipe clean our eyes and see them for what they are.
They’ll try anything. It wasn’t long ago that they were insisting that, as part of the negotiations, their Revolutionary Guards no longer be labelled terrorists. But that is what the Guards do.
As I understand it, if the nuclear deal is reenacted, we will be paying Iran billions of dollars in compensation for having broken the treaty during the Trump administration.
So, we give Iran money so they can build drones for Russians to kill Ukrainians and then also order operatives to come into our country to kill our former government officials?
It’s time to part company and stop trying to make a deal.
We should trust that, eventually, the forces of reason in Iran, will topple their oppressive theocracy. It is those people, now suffering under the weight of repression, who need our support. Not the Iranian governing class.
As for Mr Rushdie, I’m deeply saddened that this happened because it was preventable.
Ayatollah Khamenei should be charged with inciting the assault on Mr Rushdie and tried in the International Criminal Court.
And we must prepare for whatever has to be done.

Oscarvaldes.medium.com, apple podcasts.

On Iran: Clarity, Mr Biden

We keep trying to reestablish the Iran Nuclear deal and yet, Iran is now sending drones to Russia to help them fight Ukrainians.
How does that work?
From what I understand, a reactivated nuclear deal has been deemed desirable because it would give Israel more time to prepare for an eventual confrontation with Iran.
But why are they not ready now?
All along there’s been the perception that Iran is determined to have their nuclear bomb.
From the skies over Syria, Israel keeps bombing Iranian positions deemed hostile to their state.
I have trouble believing that if a deal is struck with Iran, that they could be trusted with anything they agree to.
Is the oil they produce worth all this effort?
Are the sanctions now imposed on them having any effect, or are they getting around them?
And if the nuclear deal is reactivated, aren’t billions of dollars expected to be paid to Iran as a form of compensation?
Does it make sense to subsidize a state that is a Russian ally?
I’m sure Ukrainians could put that money to better use.
I believe that we and the West can live without Iran.
Iran’s theocratic dictatorship will one day crumble from within and we will welcome them back to the community of nations, although it may take years for it to happen.
It is very unlikely that anything we do will prevent the expected confrontation between Iran and Israel or between Iran and us in the Persian Gulf.
The Iranians have chosen sides. They are with Russia and China and against us.
To think otherwise is wishful thinking.
Efforts have been made to bolster ties with Arab states in the region (Abraham Accords), started by the Trump administration.
We should keep working on those. But the reactivation of the nuclear deal with Iran does not seem beneficial to us at all.
President Biden, do take a moment to tell us why you’re keeping those talks alive.
What are we missing?
We need clarity.

Thank you

Oscarvaldes.medium.com

Oh Italy!

Photo by Davide Cacciatori on Pexels.com

You keep turning right politically.
You keep mishandling the immigration issue.
Granted, you’re right there, at the front of the problem. Immigrants from Africa keep coming to your shores, but there are ways to handle the problem.
Immigration from less developed areas is the leading problem we face today.
Technology has made the world smaller. People anywhere can see how much more there is elsewhere and they want to be part of it. They reason they live only once and so want the opportunities they are denied in their homelands because of their flawed political and economic institutions.
Man was born in Africa. We’re all Africans. I am African.
Advanced nations need to do more to assist the evolution of poorer nations, and thus help create conditions for those born there to commit to assist in their national betterment.
Until then, the desperate will risk their lives in search of a better life.
Until the needed structural changes come about in their homelands, we need to work with the immigrant.
Limits need to be set, of course, and every nation has a right to do so, but show kindness and tolerance to the desperate knocking at your door and begging to be let in. Begging for respite.
You are a creative nation. You gave us the Renaissance. The world knows of your enormous creative potential.
Do not turn back on it. Exercise it. Let it shine fully. Come up with new solutions.
I worry that your turning right politically is countering the creative energies you are capable of.
I worry that some of your politicians have openly embraced Putin.
I worry that you sympathize with a leader like Viktor Orban, in Hungary, who openly states his nation does not want diversity. Is that sensible to say in a world growing more and more diverse?
Is that not being like the ostrich and burying your head in the sand?
Dare to lead, Italy! Dare to embrace diversity and it will enrich you.
Have faith in your capacity to adapt, to invent, to show the world the way we should go.
Do not flinch from your responsibilities as a nation with such rich history.
Sure, there was a time when you embraced fascism, but you evolved.
Do not go back.
You are a highly capable nation. Be true to your heritage. Meet the hard problems of our time.
Choose leaders who value and promote independence of thought, who challenge you to use your brain, not to blindly follow them.
Do not take your cue from leaders like Trump in America who has made every effort to turn off dialogue in our land.
Rise, Italy, rise and dare to light up the torch of reason like you once did.

Oscarvaldes.medium.com

PS: Do not do like Britain who, in one of their darkest moments, recently came up with a scheme to send unwelcome immigrants to Rwanda.

Push to Defeat Russia

This is the time.
I don’t think Putin would survive a defeat in Ukraine.
Russia is a demoralized nation for when they compare themselves with the rest of the world they have to wonder, ‘how come we’re not among the leading countries?’
‘How come people don’t want to come visit us?’
‘Why doesn’t anyone want to immigrate to Russia?’
‘What is missing?’
‘How come, by contrast, people are risking their lives to immigrate to America?’
‘If we can make sophisticated nuclear weapons, make vaccines, be one of the architects of the international space station, how come we make headlines only when we’re killing our neighbors? Or when we support brutal regimes like the Myanmar dictator?’
What is missing is political development.
Putin has been allowed to arrest the political maturation of Russia.
And he has done so by severely restricting the freedom of its citizens.
By sheer brutality he has held back the historical advancement of his brothers and sisters.
He’s got them hypnotized with the idea of a new Soviet Union, reclaiming a glory that was based on repression and cruelty.
But it’s all wishful thinking. There’s no turning back.
Next door, in Europe, a grand experiment in social understanding is taking place in the form of the European Union. Something similar could be happening in Russia. Instead, its citizens have opted to let one man, only one man, decide the fate of 125 million people.
It is sheer madness.
The courage of Ukrainians in fighting for their land has presented the world with a unique opportunity.
Support Ukraine with all the weapons they need and Russia can be pushed back entirely out of Ukraine. Even out of Crimea which was annexed by Russia in 2014.
A Russian defeat in Ukraine would stimulate the progressive section in the country that has not been fooled by Putin’s grandiosity.
It should be clear that China has nothing to offer in terms of political development. Their people are also in chains, in their case to a Communist party that presents itself as the celestially ordained class of people with the wisdom to dictate to the rest of the nation on how things should be done. The price? Surrender your freedom. Surrender your ability to think. We, in the party, will do the thinking for you. In other words, the Chinese model offers nothing new, but more of the same the Russians have endured for years and years.
The Western alliance should be more decisive in supporting Ukraine.
A defeated Putin will spark a movement to depose him and the likelihood is that such movement will be more pro West than pro China.
The consequences of such shift would be enormous for the prosperity of the word.
A pro western shift in Russia would likely stimulate a pro western movement in China. And the world could see the beginning of a new era, not one driven by conflict but by cooperation.
Imagine for a moment, the clout that Russia, the West and China would have working together to assist development in Africa or any impoverished region in the world?
Instead of arguing over differences that are mostly their leaders’ personal preferences.
Cult of personality is one of the most destructive forces in our world today.
There is a nefarious cult of personality today in Russia, in the person of Putin, in China, in the person of Xi Jinping, in America in the person of Donald Trump.
Cults of personality emerge in nations where the majority or a significant portion of the population ceases to think their own thoughts.
The revolt against such tendency is essential to the freedom of mankind.
Russians don’t need Putin, like Chinese don’t need Xi Jinping, like Americans don’t need Donald Trump. Nor their clones in the making.
Human beings should not surrender under any circumstances. Each life should be a life long struggle to assert who we are, to express each person’s uniqueness.

Oscarvaldes.medium.com, anchor.fm, apple and google podcasts.

2024 Elections

The Republican party has a steep uphill battle for the 2024 presidential elections.
The footprint that Trump has left will be hard to erase.
That’s how toxic it has been.
The fact that Trump is still in the running for the nomination is baffling, but that’s clear evidence of how confused the party is.
Immigration is the central issue.
Trump seized on it to rally support but couldn’t come up with an answer to the problem.
Immigration needs limits. Enforceable limits. We need borders and the means to sustain them.
But we can’t do without immigration.
The faction of the Republican party who wants to severely restrict immigration would cripple the nation if they had their say.
It is true that we need to bolster the opportunities for advancement for Americans now in the lower earning rungs of our society, but we still need to keep open the doors for qualified immigrants to come to this country.
This is our advantage over China and Russia. They are closed off to immigration. That is hurting them.
The force that immigration is has a transformative effect on any nation. And it is overwhelmingly a positive one.
Europe has been struggling with immigration for years and, to their credit, they’re still at it.
China and Russia just choose not to deal with the problem. And it is their loss.
Looking at the Republican field for the nomination for president, I see little to suggest that a Republican candidate can go up successfully against Biden, if he chooses to run, or another democratic candidate, say Harris or Newsom.
Republican candidates are failing on the issues. Overturning Roe vs Wade will do little to invigorate the party. The majority of American women want to keep their right to choose.
Had Trump been elected instead of Biden, Putin would by now have annexed Ukraine and invited Trump to the ceremonies.
In the press conference that would have followed, Trump would have been asked by a reporter if he thought Putin had the right to take over Ukraine, and Trump would have said, ‘I don’t see why not, he was feeling encircled by NATO. We need to give him his space.’
And then Putin would have walked over and handed him a Cossack hat, as a tribute to his far reaching understanding of how the world works. And Trump would have put it on. Then said, ‘Look, Russia is a great country, and they need their space. By not arming the resistance in Ukraine we have saved many lives, and America’s closer ties with Russia will help us deal with the menace of China.’
Putin would have smiled and thought to himself, ‘We need to get this guy reelected a third term.’
Trump and freedom don’t mix. His legacy of obscurantism will last for some years.
Still, there are enlightened sectors in the Republican party who might push forward a sane candidate to run against the democrats. I think that candidate would be John Kasich.

Oscarvaldes.medium.com, anchor.fm, apple and google podcasts.

On Courage

It starts with the willingness to dissent.
To be able to disagree, to oppose, to not go along with something you do not favor.
It is a quality to be nurtured. It needs to be exercised because otherwise it shrinks and atrophies. And to allow that is to allow for our gradual devaluing. In our eyes and in the eyes of others.
You can be born with that precious quality or work to acquire it.
Having it makes life immensely satisfying for you have an essential tool to shape your life.
There are different kinds of courage. Physical, intellectual, emotional.
A physically strong person may be able to assert themselves in a physical confrontation but not so in an intellectual or emotional one, while an intellectually or emotionally strong person may not stand up for themselves satisfactorily in a physical confrontation.
But what sits at the center of courage? What feeds it?
Four things come to mind:
A willingness to set limits, to say, ‘I have before me the option of this or that but at this stage of my knowledge I set my limits here.’
The willingness to take the initiative on matters leading to our betterment, personal or professional.
The willingness to trust our intuition.
And the steady exercise of all the above.
Courage’s ever present companion is risk. Without risk there is no courage. They go hand in hand.
Courage can be built, if there is the desire. And it is most desirable for it makes life richer and fruitful.
Courage can be public or private.
Every one of us, in our personal lives, is always being asked by life’s circumstances to exercise a measure of courage. Everyday life presents to us a challenge.
Most of those demands are for private displays of courage. Sometimes, though, they are public.
If we have been thinking and acting on the matter, then we’ll be in a better position to meet the challenge.
And if we don’t, then we should learn from it, thus preparing for the next occasion which, unless we’re hiding under a rock, is sure to come our way.
Life is unsparing in that sense. It loves to test us. To incessantly ask us, ‘are you learning from what I bring you every day, or are you sleep walking through it?’ Pay attention.
Lives are better lived when there is courage. Of course, as in anything involving courage and risk, there is no guarantee of results. Every day could be our last one. But such is life.
A word about group or national courage.
Today we are witnessing a special moment. Ukraine has chosen to stand up against Putin’s aggression. It is a remarkable time in history. Thousands of men and women have lost their lives in defense of their land and their right to choose their destiny. Russians and others that stand with Putin, notably China, should be ashamed of their stance.
The rest of us should not forget this.
Political leaderships that silence dissent are a threat to all of us, even to those thousands of miles away.
And just like Russians and Chinese gave in to their leaders, we should be on guard that it doesn’t happen in our land.

Oscarvaldes.medium.com, anchor.fm, apple and google podcasts.

Russia, Turn West!

Photo by Abdullah Ghatasheh on Pexels.com

This is the time. The time to break the chains that Putin has wrapped around your neck.
You are not the nation you could be.
You have the capabilities to stand as one of the first nations in the world, but you are not because to do so you need freedom, and freedom is not something Putin is willing to give you.
Your leader is determined to enlarge his personal power, not the power of the rest of Russians.
To do so he has chosen to invade Ukraine because they did not kneel before him.
That is what you are doing, Russia, kneeling before Putin because you do not dare to raise your voice.
You have gone so long without hearing your voice that you’ve forgotten what it sounds like.
That happens in dictatorships.
It is happening in your neighbor China, where Xi Jinping and his gang keep constant surveillance and restrictions on their citizens. They say that it’s in the interest of a greater future, when China will dominate the world. But freedoms restricted lead to impaired development in human beings.
Russia, you need to get back your voice.
The world needs you.
You went for centuries under the foot of Czars, then under Stalin and those who followed.
Only for a brief period, under Gorbachev, did you smell freedom, only to have it disappear under Putin.
Think of the enormous role you could play in world history if you chose to turn West.
You could choose whatever system of government you wanted. A system like the British have, or we here in America, or the French or the Germans or the Finns or the Swedes.
But you would be free.
Personally, I would be partial to a federal system of government that would make you the United States of Russia.
And you would enrich the world with all your talent and resources.
You would break out of the cultural isolation that Putin likes to keep you in because it suits his purposes.
And by turning West, then China would have to moderate its plans for world domination because they would become impossible to achieve.
This is the time to turn West.
For your development, for your economic growth and the realization of your potential as a nation.
Think for a moment of the cruelty that Putin has inflicted on Ukrainians and Russians. Sending them to their death because he has a dream of a larger Russia. But you are already large enough territorially. What you need is to unleash your talents, break out of you isolation and join the rest of the world fighting for democracy and the affirmation of human beings.
Russia, the world needs you.
This is the time to rise and retire Putin. Send him to his dacha for a permanent vacation.
Russia deserves to be all it can be and the world will be better off for it. Just do it!

Oscarvaldes.medium.com, anchor.fm, apple and google podcasts.

The Essential Diary

Getting to know our emotional world well is a life long task. And it takes patience.
But the benefits are vast.
We have made and are making enormous progress in all branches of science and its applied disciplines and yet, by comparison, we are way behind in the understanding and processing of our emotions.
We can build sophisticated weapons to destroy cities thousands of miles away, or satellites flying overhead.
And yet, critical decision making can go wrong because of poorly managed emotions.
There are efforts now underway to teach children about their emotional world while in school. And yet they have met with resistance.
To not embark in the task of understanding ourselves is to severely limit our possibilities.
In China, today, a regime has positioned itself into power by severely restricting its citizens’ emotional world. That’s what closed surveillance and limits on speech do.
In Europe, Putin started a world because he felt threatened, he tells us. And he may well have but he had reason to be, for he had put severe restraints on what his citizens could and could not say or do.
Any conversation we have treads on an emotional substrate. We feel pleased, not pleased or annoyed as the conversation proceeds, our emotions acting as the gauge that determines whether to continue or not, change tactic or switch topic.
Given the central role of our emotions in our lives, we don’t treat them with the proper care.
To enhance such care keeping a Diary may prove most helpful.
This diary I suggest is not a document onto which notations need to be made every day.
You make them when an idea, passing emotion or past incident catches your attention.
What makes it unique is that it should be only for your eyes. No one should lay eyes on it.
Not your spouse, your parents, your children, your God.
It is only for you.
Because it is only for you, you will be enticed to write down anything that comes to your mind, whether pleasing, shameful, cruel or absurd.
And that is the start of the journey into your mind.
(This idea has been around for a long time, in various forms)
Having made a notation you can then return to it at your convenience, sit with the content and try to explain it to yourself.
‘Why am I ashamed of what I did?
Did I lie?
Did I take advantage of someone?
Did I injure the person?
Was I disloyal?
Was I ungrateful?
Was I petty?
Was I violent?
Why didn’t I behave differently?’
The behavior noted, it is then up to you to seek to understand it.
One thought will trigger another. And once you start, the journey never ends.
But such is the nature of emotions.
You do the work at your own pace, when you find the time and inclination. You’ll know if you’re avoiding the work.
You should be alone when you tend to your diary.
Let your mind wander and make additional notes if you wish. The point is to review the matter,
to turn it around, to look at it from different perspectives.
You may or may not find it healing at first or find you’re not able to tolerate the emotion the notation has taken you to. If so, then you pause until you can review it again.
If the emotions aroused prove to be difficult to manage, then get assistance.
But for most people, the mind has protective devices that lead you to areas it thinks you are able to manage.
Self knowledge is priceless. It lets us learn from our mistakes and helps us make better choices.
Some will say that this diary is not for everybody. I say it is. That’s why only you gets to read it. You’re not competing with anyone but yourself. Understanding your emotions will keep you from being ruled by them.
One other thing. You will learn soon enough, that to make progress you must forgive yourself. And others too.
A Diary that is nurtured and cared for, will help you walk on firmer ground, and the fog ahead you didn’t think was there, will start to lift.

Good luck.

Oscarvaldes.medium.com, anchor.fm, apple and google podcasts