In Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, why does Crusoe want to catalog (briefly) the events of every day? Why not just let time pass and allow the weeks and...

In Defoe's
, I believe that Crusoe starts a journal for much the same reasons that he
builds furniture, grows food, improves his "home," and tries to domesticate the goats:
he is doing his very best to act as if he were within civilized society so as not to lose his
mind with loneliness and worry.

When Crusoe first arrives on the island, his
first concern is gathering as many supplies, tools and materials from the wrecked ship as
possible. His plan is to do his best to survive until he is rescued. This process takes a long
time and requires a great deal of work. After there is nothing else to collect, he begins to
build a substantial shelter, manages the supplies (such as separating gunpowder so it doesn't
all blow up), makes furniture, finds a source of fresh water, and goes about learning ways to
feed himself. These things also take a long time. He eventually learns to
make candles so that he does not need to go to sleep when the sun goes down. In essence, Crusoe
does his best to create some semblance of a homestead, which not only protects him and adds to
his comfort, but also keeps him occupied. When he can no longer do this, he sometimes searches
for rescue; seeing no ships on the horizon, he cries. Keeping a journal keeps track of the days,
but helps give him new direction as well. He writes:

Some
days after this, and after I had been on board the ship, and got all that I could out of her,
yet I could not forbear getting up to the top of a little mountain and looking out to sea, in
hopes of seeing a ship; then fancy at a vast distance I spied a sail, please myself with the
hopes of it, and then after looking steadily, till I was almost blind, lose it quite, and sit
down and weep like a child, and thus increase my misery by my folly.

But
having gotten over these things in some measure, and having settled my household staff and
habitation, made me a table and a chair, and all as handsome about me as I could, I began to
keep my journal; of which I shall here give you the copy (though in it will be told all these
particulars over again) as long as it lasted; for having no more ink, I was forced to leave it
off.

Crusoe is not a strong man when he arrives on the
island. He is a member of the comfortable middle class in England. He is in no way prepared for
the demands of being stranded alone on a deserted island. In the face of crisis, however, he
proves that he has inner- fortitude in rising to each occasion in order to survive. He seems to
have a good deal of common sense and he knows himself. It seems that he quickly realizes that
attending to his physical comfort is paramount. Once he has that well in hand, his mental and
emotional states must also be seen to. The journal helps Crusoe focus on civilized behavior,
which keeps him from going insane.