Where Ideas Live
It started with a real journal. A nice hardbound one that was given to me as a gift. I wasn’t really in to journaling, so only the first 10 or so pages were filled. But, like many things that people say are good for you, I found myself wanting to want to journal.
Next came another journal, which was also filled for the first 10 pages. Somewhere into my third or fourth mostly empty journal I got a computer of my own. This is when things got complicated.
There are bits and bytes on a hard drive somewhere with Word docs full of ideas and things I wanted to remember from when I was 18. Mostly thoughtless stories with a nice memory here and there.
Then there was Blogger and Live Journal, and your journal could be public. People could comment, strangers from the internet would know about your life! Even faster came YouTube and Ze Frank and Viddler.
Soon after there were more than enough tools for writing and video (and podcasting), the idea of ownership became increasingly important. Moveable Type and WordPress and other products meant you could publish and own in a whole new way. And, if you were a developer or someone interested in CMS’s, you could roll your own blog or website or whatever your might call it.
Except it wasn’t the words that were changing, it was where the ideas were. The ideas were the same from paper to blogs to video to tweets to my homespun content managing software (to Medium).
The digital solutions promised more organization with tags and timestamps and infinite storage. These benefits exist, but are rendered ineffective by the scattering of content over years of new places and services and Terms of Services and link rot. Software tools were bought and sold and taken public and shut down. Like a hydra, the death of one was the birth of three more, each solving the cause of the demise of their former.
So, where should things go? Should everything be in the same place? What about long-term thoughts vs. fleeting ideas vs. quick creations? What can be tossed out like a Snapchat, and what should be embossed in stone (or printed in paper)? I wish I knew, as this question seems to prevent me from writing many ideas down anywhere.
After several years of thought, I’m starting to believe more and more that it doesn’t matter at all. My existence and body of work will not be defined by my blog, my Twitter stream, my Facebook wall, or even my volumes of mostly empty journals. I will outlast all of these things, and hopefully some of my best ideas will live in the minds of others and outlast me.
The truly important things will not be forgotten, and the rest will stay around as long as it can, or as long as it needs to. This post may exist for years, or it could disappear in the stack tomorrow. Here’s to caring about that less, and sharing ideas more, in any way possible.
