Journals to Blogging and recording one’s life

This is my first every diary entry, about Bermuda Kite Day (Pics!).

I’ve more or less journaled my whole life. In college I’d write for an hour each day, but then I’ve taken breaks of up to a year.

The urge to write is a funny thing. Every few years I’ll read through my old journals and it makes me feel closer to my old selves. Often I’ll find that my memory about an event has become distorted. Then I realized that had I not written things down, I’d still be clinging to the false memory!

Recently I read Stumbling on Happiness, where Gilbert makes the point that we are our memories. I couldn’t agree more, and having more memories makes me feel like I’ve lived more of a life.

The trick, then, is the transition to the online world!

The great thing is that so much more than mere writing can be captured: bookmarks, photos, movies, clickstreams, tweets. It’s all part of who I am right now. And in the way that filtering of memories in my head determines my self-image, the filtering of my online markings determines my web-image.

This is all to say that I will be rolling out some changes shortly, and also re-doubling my efforts to blog more! (Seth and Greg are also blogging about their lack of blogging. Is something in the air?) So like Greg, I’m going to work on getting smaller thoughts out faster rather than waiting for those blissful time to write full-blown essays.