Explore every episode of the podcast Think on Paper: The Journaling Podcast

This is where it begins. In the first episode of Think on Paper, Andrew and Tanya sit down for the conversation that started the whole project: a frustration with commercial journals that skate over the surface, and the question of what a journal could be if it asked you something real.

Andrew explains why he stopped buying off-the-shelf gratitude-and-affirmation journals and started writing his own questions instead — roughly eighty of them, grouped into eight areas of life, the kind of questions no one had ever actually asked him. Tanya describes what happened when she first read them: not a quiz, but more like thinking out loud on paper.

From there, the conversation opens out into why an unexamined inner life is worth examining, where journaling sits alongside professional support, why a pen on paper does something a keyboard doesn’t, and how ink, handwriting, and even the nib itself shape the way you think. It’s a candid, unhurried first episode about getting back to thinking on paper.

What we get into

(00:00) Why write your own journaling questions — Andrew on his frustration with commercial journals: gratitude and affirmations that felt cheesy and superficial, "skating over the surface" instead of going deep.

(01:25) Eight categories, eighty questions — Dividing life into eight areas (family, friendship, relationships, work, money, health, spirituality, and more) and writing about ten questions for each — including the ones nobody ever thinks to ask.

(03:06) Reading the questions for the first time — Tanya on "dissecting your soul without you knowing," jotting down notes she didn't expect to write, and the freedom of not having it all figured out.

(04:47) We're all the same underneath — Buddha, the Delphic oracle's "know thyself," and Socrates: why the same deep questions haunt a 97-year-old grandmother and a 15-year-old teenager alike.

(06:09) Rummaging in your own attic — The case for self-examination — and a clear line that deep trauma calls for professional guidance first, not journaling alone.

(07:38) Personal stories — A frank exchange about instability, trauma and mental health, the years they journaled most, and why writing carried part of the work that talking couldn't.

(10:00) The 167 hours — Why journaling is the sustainable practice between sessions, like the study you do outside a language class.

(11:34) Shapeshifters — Reflecting across countries, relationships and careers, and Andrew's master's thesis idea: turning habits into choices.

(12:47) Is life a project you keep working on? — Not perfectible, but improvable — and refusing "it is what it is."

(13:57) Thinking on paper — Journaling as an inner dialogue instead of a stew of thoughts spinning in your head.

(15:02) Owning your personal development — Tanya on claiming her own progress, epiphanies and calm as her own.

(15:27) Pen vs. keyboard — The Buddhist "monkey mind," the idea of one-pointedness, and the nib as the perfect single point of focus.

(17:01) No delete key — Why writing by hand is slower, more deliberate, and more intentional than typing.

(18:00) Handwriting, calligraphy and the reMarkable — How the same person writes differently depending on tool and intention.

(19:43) Handwriting and emotion — Does your handwriting change with your mood the way some people's eyes do?

(20:21) Ink colours — Green, brown, Bordeaux, turquoise, purple: school-day blue and black versus the small adult freedom of choosing your own colour — and why it echoes the brand palette.

(21:56) The fountain pen world — Penmanship as a subculture, nib geeks, the r/fountainpens rabbit hole, and people who own sixty pens the way others own guitars.

(22:31) eYou.social — A privacy-first European social platform with post-by-post verification, and the journaling-and-paper community Tanya found there overnight.

(23:50) Why this excites us — Journaling matters to everyone from the CEO to the homemaker, and starting a venture from a real, felt gap.

(24:16) An invitation into the fold — Something for lifelong journalers and complete first-timers alike.

(25:09) How to get involved (CTA) — Come record with us, follow along, and subscribe.

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