xffr

I use Feedly to follow different entities that post somewhat regularly. I use Twitter to follow different people I find interesting. I sometimes otherwise browse, or run into things on the web, maybe through Instagram, or Medium, or research at work, or just general surfing. 

I have a desire to “log” many of these things I find interesting, to categorize them, and save them, as though I’ll reach some day in my life when I will decide I will no longer pursue future things but will go back and examine all the past things I have already examined in the category of trail running or van living or interesting or funny. 

At the same time, I want to log things in a chronological, linear-type fashion as though I’ll reach some day in my life when I will decide I will no longer pursue future things but will go back and examine all the past things I have examined and find fascinating the connecting line between all these interesting things. Somehow, this record will be useful, no? Somehow, it is worth the trouble. 

I will never do this. My Pocket account has hundreds of links, articles, videos, resources that I will never follow up on. I have tried halfheartedly to log things for years. Some months I actually do. Some weeks I definitely don’t. I say, who cares? I am the only one who would be sad later to not be able to find such and such a photo or story that I vaguely remember seeing that one time. And even that rarely happens and it seems to always be for stroking my own ego. Oh, we’re talking about some obscure, pointless topic? I want to look cool. I think I saw once this picture that... I don’t remember. I’ve no idea of anything about it. If I only had logged it... What? How would it have helped? There is no way to immediately recall a photo or link or story on the web that you saw once other than to recall it through memory, in the moment. So, who cares? 

Even as I write this I’m discouraging myself to even try posting to Tumblr. What’s the point? This whole whim just came up thusly:

I’m visiting my brother in Washington. His home has wifi. I have not had wifi at my home for over a year and so have only truly used the internet while at my office. I check the socials on my phone from my home, but that doesn’t count. It’s completely different from sitting here in a comfy chair with my laptop (big screen and easy typing) on my lap, world wide web at my beck and call. 

So after church, what to do? I grab my laptop to help me prepare for my race tomorrow, but get distracted by going through my Feedly subscriptions. I get to the Humor category and see the Oatmeal comic that hasn’t expired yet. I read it. It’s about being “unhappy” and it’s really good, I think. I want to do something with it. I want to remember it. I want it to mean something to me. I want the experience to last somehow. I think about posting it on my old blogspot blog. Seems like it would require more of a blog post about it, and I don’t want to blog about it. I just want to extend this experience. Plus it’s probably a waste to others, whoever might see it.

I think about, and even start, a new list on my Workflowy. That could actually probably work well, but I don’t like the formatting for this kind of thing, and it’s more effort and not as aesthetically pleasing to maintain the linear record of discovery. Oatmeal lists a couple links at the bottom of this comic. They take me to an author I’m not familiar with. I want to remember that guy and his books now, too. For potential future record. And since I’m not jumping on the books and becoming obsessed with it all right now, I know that it could be a while. So I want to know why I was interested in them in the first place, which is why I want the paper trail. But Workflowy..? I was working on saving this whole line of discovery there and was losing interest. I needed something else.

Oh, maybe Tumblr? I’d forgotten about Tumblr. What’s my password again? There we go. 

On a whim, I think I’m going to...

Now we’re here. I’ve written heaps of words about nothing. No one will probably read this. If you are, wow. Will I read it later? I was just going to write Will I even post this? but if I don’t, that question would be pointless. Now I’m struggling with the pointlessness of this. Really, it’s sort of a struggle of fearing what “you” might think if you are reading this. Whoever “you” are. But no, I’m going to post this. Because why the heck not. Even if I’m lamenting my life some more ten years down the road and decide to look back on all the disparate and ridiculously fragmented and numerous posts of my life all over the internet and socials, this may be one of the posts I end up scrolling through and I might find it interesting. Even if I don’t ever do that, I still have spent the past 15 minutes writing some of my thoughts and the process of their happening, and that’s better than what I usually accomplish in any given 15 minutes. 

So here goes. Maybe I will use Tumblr some from now on again. Maybe I won’t. I suspect not. I could be wrong.