The Desire To Document And Collect
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The desire to document and collect must be something in our nature as humans.
I recently watched the Pamela Anderson documentary on Netflix and was struck by everything she kept over the years. Every diary, scrap of paper, videotape, piece of clothing, and shoes (lots of shoes). Every memory was saved and stored away in plastic boxes which she delved through during the filming.
I’ve also been reading a lot of Austin Kleon’s work recently. He keeps all his diaries on a shelf in his office. When he’s stuck for inspiration or what to write, he opens an old diary to a random page and starts reading.
Austin also wrote a piece about comedians like Joan Rivers keeping all the jokes they’d written in big filing cabinets to use as a reference. If you’ve ever read How To Take Smart Notes the filing cabinets will likely remind you a lot of the Zettelkasten system.
The urge to document has always been strong in me too. I used to keep diaries from a young age and write in them every day.
Unfortunately, in my case, I never kept any of them.
I suppose the reason is I felt like they weren’t good or weren’t important enough. Most…
