The Book of Observations, not to be confused with the book, is a simple concept. The idea is that you or your friends or anyone else writes down ideas, things, or events as they occur/are thought of. It's almost a written everything2. There are a few basic grounds rules present at the front of the book.
- Don't cross out/erase anything you write. If it's wrong who cares. Let people see what you were thinking.
- Don't deface what other people have written. You might not like what they wrote but they did.
- Write your name next to your name so people know who said what. The presence of an anonymous person is up to the proprietor of the book. Sometimes this is a good idea but it tends to get abused by stupid shits who troll around with it. In the place i used it(a middle school) it would have failed quickly.
- Sign in. There is a list somewhere in the book for people to sign in. This should probably be at the back.
- Don't ignore the rules. If writers ignore the rules they should be punished in some way.
I implemented this concept when i was in middle school. Originally i planned it to be a notebooke that i made observations about life in. Then I decided to share it with my friends.
Originally it got off to a rocky start. Someone would wite some mean stuff about someone else and then they would want to see what was written. Then i would get shit about it. The side effect was that everyone wanted to write in it.
Eventually i got people to take it seriously. The bulk of the writing by other people took place on an orchestra trip. Some of it was worth reading other was stupid stuff about how a certain band sucked or was better. The important thing is that even though i didn't really think some of the stuff was worth reading i didn't say anything.
Most of the other writing i did. My two friends also did a lot of writing.
The main thing i was aiming for was philosophy of sorts. Although only me and my two friends wrote anything like that i am still pleased with what i got. It offered me some insight into how human nature is and also how human interaction works. I learned stuff about people who i thought were losers and stuff about people i thought were cool that changed the next year of my life and now that i think about it my life to date.
You learn a lot about people when you can analyse what they have said. The book taught me to do this. It let me identify the people that were shallow, the people who were insecure, the people who were attention cravers, the people who were sane.
P.S. Post any results you might get from trying this on your own.