Posted by ryan on 12/1/2009, 20:07:27, in reply to "for posterity"
My view should not be too surprising as I have been writing things down for at least the last eight years. I will grant you that a lot of it is unreadable now for me, and surely uninteresting for everyone else, at the very least. In recent years, however, I've come to realize that there are entire events that I have completely lost the ability to remember on my own. Without another person remembering them and providing copious amounts of detail, I can only assume that they would be gone completely.
It makes sense that memories continue regardless of our ability to recall them, but functionally it is the same as I don't have someone probing my brain with an electrode. Yet.
Plus there are a lot of memories of things that occurred with exes, and because I don't communicate with most of them, the memories are detaching themselves rapidly. Maybe that is good, but that doesn't bode well for memories I want to keep.
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I seem to be getting a bit off track. I understand both viewpoints you mention and agree with one or the other depending on the day. Sometimes I agree that writing stuff down is a waste as it can hamper development or getting beyond the past. Other times I am focused on the brief window of observation I have and the fact that it is sliding through time with me. My experience — even allowing to include what I read about others' lives — is very limited, both physically and in time. It seems a waste to not record anything.
At various times I write to vent, to make sense out of something, to argue a point, to ask a question, occasionally specifically to remember later, and to communicate. Granted, very few people read it and somehow very few of those ever say anything, but I like reading about others.
I think writing helps me, and I see no reason to stop.
One more thing. I hate when have an experience like you mention where I don't write something down only later to not be able to remember exactly what was said/done or how it was funny.
And another. How often throughout the week or month do you end up thinking about something to write about? It happens fairly often to me. I find it all very odd.
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