(morning writing)

[elainegrey]

I've wondered why people stop posting, don't say "i'm done", but drift off. As i watch it happening to me, i can see some of the reasons. Simply loosing the place, time, trigger to write to something else: that's happened in several ways. One is that i stopped letting myself access LJ/DW on work's computer. This was some years ago, but it was a big impact. Starting to write something in the morning would be interrupted until end of day. Maybe i can come up with a way around that.

The next is having other places to record things. This started, well, now probably 15 years ago when i started keeping logs in Evernote, then when i got fed up with Evernote and moved to Airtable. Oh, heavens it's been lovely to have the structured data of Airtable to log everything, to mix tasks and reminders and records as needed and to make it match just what i want and need. And it can be context free: log a health thing, an achievement or milestone, and not need to put it in context. It's slowly taken on all sorts of textures -- looking ahead, looking back, checking in the moment. I loose the context: explaining something here means minimally making a slapdash attempt to use my words and share why i am recording, why i care. In my log i just start recording things i am eating without explaining why.

I suspect screen time comes up. I think i spend too much time reading all the lifestyle and human interest in the New York Times after either an approaching sense of gut punch or horror that i quickly evade by skimming the latest judgement by John Hodgman. Instead of pondering some thought that triggers, i rush off to the next article that catches my attention.

Comments

[altamira16]

I don't access DW from work computers either, and I feel that over time I have put less care in my writing because I have had less time without interruption.

One day, I hope to have time without interruption again, but will life be so boring then that I will have nothing to share?

The notes without context are less of a reference than the notes with context are.

Sometimes it is helpful to go back and see what I was thinking at a given time. Occasionally, it is disappointing because something that feels significant in the moment is something that I did not reflect on very much in the past.

If I start thinking about a book and go back to see what my review of that book said several years ago, and all I said was "This was good," that is not the insightfulness that I really want from my past self.

[tamena]

Sometimes it is helpful to go back and see what I was thinking at a given time. Occasionally, it is disappointing because something that feels significant in the moment is something that I did not reflect on very much in the past.
this is exactly why I journal at this point, as I've grown older I find life moving by so quickly, I feel like I've missed something if I don't get it down somewhere

[elainegrey]

I feel like i am capturing the raw data so easily now -- last night a photo of rearranged rooms, log entries of health issues, of attempts to resolve issues with this or that, chat logs and so on -- that ... do i have time to reflect? Do i have the emotional capacity to reflect, actually, because i think i go read to escape the emotions.

[elainegrey]

My belief (hope!) is that we might become more interesting the less interrupted we are, and i assume that that is if we continue to grow. I think of one journal i skim - an older man who obsesses about his understanding of righteous living, who reads constantly but seems to focus on confirming his beliefs. That i don't find very interesting. Another artist walks the same trails but her photos and telling of how the trails change is interesting.

Maybe when we are less interrupted -- i'm sure tech work isn't special but it sure seems to have a certain sort of crazy to it that physical construction did not when my dad was working in construction management, no one was inventing new concrete midway through building a building and everyone needed to go learn about it and adapt the design for it -- we will go back and excavate our pasts and make sense of them.

The m-dash might be the punctuation of our era: all the interruptions.

[lyr]

I generally assume people drift away rather than announcing departure because it's not something they intend to do or even realize is happening except in retrospect. So much of losing contact with people works that way.

[elainegrey]

Indeed, and those patterns of a change in one part of a life having impacts in another part seem to be part of that beyond just not journaling here.

[liveonearth]

It takes an effort, to write. And there are, as you mention, many possible outlets. I use workflowy for lists, brief notes, a GTD getting things done system. The "maybe someday" folder holds all the zillion things I'd like to do but can't find a slot to put it in. My paper journal helps me retain phrases, draw pictures to link complicated ideas. Why are you here? That's complicated, so go ahead, start again. I for one am glad to see you still returning.

[elainegrey]

Thank you. It's one of the few places i connect with people's lives so my drifting counters what is important to me.