I received a few emails this morning from several J-landers about a petition of sorts. This petition can be found at Dan's journal, SlapInions. Writes Dan, "I would like your help in pushing AOL to create a means of permanently saving and printing the contents of our journals."
If you leave a comment there, it will count as a petition signature. He has acquired several 'signatures' as of this entry, and will likely acquire many more. I left my comment there in support of the idea.
I've often considered cutting and pasting the nearly three years of entries I've written here into a Word program, and saving it to a disk. At this point, that would take considerable time to do. There are a lot of pages.
If what monponsett (aka, HighAboveCourtside/Nor'EasterBlues) thinks about aol's relationship to our journals is true, I better do just that (copy and save). Read her comment in Dan's entry. I hadn't thought about that possibility.
I don't type up my entries in a Word program before posting them onto aol, but maybe I should.... to prevent the possibility of losing all these long-thinking pages. I entertain the thought, sometimes, that there will be one descendent of mine interested in the life of their great-grandmother, or great-great aunt.
If I were to lose the journal pages suddenly and unexpectedly as monponsett predicts, it would not be like losing everything I own in a fire, however, I would have to start over. From a new starting point.
My friends know my story, my husband, my son, my brothers and sisters in Christ, my neighbors, and some of my fellow teachers... my mother,my own siblings... each knows a piece of my life. My regular visitors to this journal also know another part of me, the learner/teacher. If everyone who knew me were to gather and put the pieces together, you'd pretty much be able to tell my life story.
Except for the parts that haven't been created yet, the things I haven't done yet: the plans I haven't written for a future I haven't lived... the gifts I haven't given, the projects I haven't started, the ideas that haven't been thought... there's still parts of me left unexpressed, untold, unloved, unheard, unwritten, unsung. I suppose we are all incomplete in that way. Every day I discover new thoughts. It's like coming awake every day... "oh yeah, I hadn't thought about that!" I hear myself say from time to time.
Sometimes those thoughts occur while reading another's journal entry. They are occasionally revealed through the words of my own entries, surprising even myself. I understand why we like to write ... it is because our own writing sheds light on life, answers our questions, and leads us forward in the quest to find ourselves. In doing so, we find ourselves in relationship with others, and most importantly, we find ourselves in relationship with our Creator. Writing may leave us empty and willing for something more to fill us.
At the end of the day, or at the beginning, when one sits down to write an entry (here on the internet or on the white paper of a composition book), sometimes the meaning of who we are and what we are becomes clearer. Typed or written in ink, our thoughts stare back at us in the form of words, each word meaningful, leading us back into our memories (each in its time), making connections with our present experiences, and shedding light on a new creation in our hearts, and hopefully in the world.
Our writing shapes us even as we shape our writing.
So the question is, should we try to save our writing? Does it really matter to anyone else a hundred years from now what happened to us? Is my writing really just for me? Would anyone bother to read through countless pages of rambles, tributes, memories, daily events, and emotional turmoil to glean a sentence of truth? Does it really matter?
It might to that one person who desires to know. For them, the discovery would be a treasured life.
16 comments:
I so agree if it weren't for someone's weight loss journey I read online I wouldn't have made my journey I am sure.
hugs
Sherry
I agree Bea.
My daughter keeps cajoling me into finishing my memoirs but even they wont hold all that other part which is me who opens up in my journal. I open my heart up on my journal and she finds it an unusual and interesting way to find out the individual personae instead of her Mum.
I hadn't thought of that when I began to write and I would hate for all my entries to be lost on the whim of AOL.
I have voted already and I hope more do.
Hope you are feeling a little better today?
Hugs
Jeanie xxx
My journal has become a testament to the journey I've been on the past few years. So many have commented I should write a book or publish one of the many entries I have made in a magazine. I would be heartbroken to lose these pages for reference to a jumping off point. I've visited Dan and left my signature. Sad to say I wonder if AOL will listen, to date they have not paid a whole lot of attention to the wishes of their clients.....I do have another blog on Blogger that I use as a backup to store some of the more recent entries. No one comments over there...yet I often wonder about changing my format and writing into that direction. Perhaps if I thought my readers would follow suit and visit me there. (Hugs) Indigo
d to save a lot of my entries, pasting them into Word files. How wonderful if we had the option of saving the entire journal to a disk. Thanks for the link to Dan's journal.
Yes, I am certain that there will be people in the future who are intrigued and warmed by reading your journal entries.--Sheria
I think it is very important I read my grandma's diary and felt so close her sadly most people don't keep records of their life.
hugs
Sherry
I think it sounds like a good idea for most people -- myself? I like just writing and seldom look back on old stuff.
Russ
I got a couple of e-mails also and saw the beginning of your entry in my alert. I did go and "sign" the petition. I never really gave it much thought. I just figured AOL would be here forever and keep the journals but who knows? What if AOL is bought out, etc. I did read monpnsett's comment which really got me to thinking. We are at AOL's whim, and, no, we rarely get any type of warning as to changes. I'm not sure who would ever want to read my stuff. My kids hate it right now but I sure like going back through my archives. Now, what to do....it would take me forever to copy and paste and print; not to mention the expense. I hope AOL responds somehow in sorts to this. Chris
I went and signed.
I think it'll be great if we can save/print our journal entries.
Gem :-)
I think actually that we should save our writings. I started off printing all of mine out when I first started this journal of mine, but after a time as they got longer and I got more verbose I stopped. I think though that I really should keep them. I am going to start a word file and keep them all in there. I am popping over now to sign the petition. I would have to lose any of my words permanently!
Marie
http://journals.aol.co.uk/mariealicejoan/MariesMuses/
Morning Bra..I have been unable to conect to the internet for 36hrs....I did miss it..When I think how long it took me to give in to my Sister when she wanted me to go ..on line.. It is funny that Dan should be doing that. I recently had a friend ask me if I kept a copy of my ramblings...I don't//but she thoughht that it would be great..so I will pop along to Dan's journal and give him my view. It is still very wet here, although they have said we might get a few rain free hours today..we will see..it is still raining at the moment..it is a continious heavy drizzle rather than a downpour but it has been that way for over 24 hours now...LOve Sybil xx
Interesting topic especially since I've been recently involved in cleaning out old crawl space boxes some with paper and pictures decades old.
Bagging up 12 lbs of old pictures for the trash (yes, I weighed them) my 19 yr old daughter remarked, I'm glad you did that if I had to go through them years from now I would have wondered if I was related to those people. <grin>
As for the AOL Journal issue, I guess some of the concern would be IF writers are paying for AOL, etc. As for me, I simply do not trust corporate America. If I want to save something, I save it to disc. Even PC hard drives can crash and you can loose all your stuff. If something is genuinely important than it iwould seem it s worth the time to save it.
Patrick
Hi Bea Ü,
First I want to say thank you for coming by to visit my journal yesterday. I am glad you liked the tags Ü I love sharing with others.
I also enjoyed reading this journal entry, it made a lot of sense. So I popped over to Dan's Journal and signed the petition Ü. I hope many, many more will be going by to sign as well. Thanks to you and other's that get the word out and pull all of us together Ü.
HUGS~Donna
When you like to write naughty stuff
as I do one must be careful about what
is preserved. I like to keep only that which
was appreciated in one way or another.
For example, the four short stories I wrote
in college and got published in the campus
Arts magazine I didn't keep, but I do have
copies of the periodical containing those stories.
Someone mentioned immediately printing
journal entries; that's the only sure preservation.
Sorry, but I still can't trust anything 'Computer.'
Barry
An inspiring entry Bea. Although our journals are in the public domain and read by others it's good to remember that, chiefly, we write them for ourselves.
I write in Word then copy and paste into my journal, so I do have a copy elsewhere. But if my pc should die before I transfer everything to an external hard drive I'd lose the lot. That's scary.
I've signed Dan's petition.
Be good.
B. x
I agree with you. It does mean something, and who knows what it could mean to our descendants. I went by to leave a comment in Dan's entry, and I think Stacy (Monponsett) has a point also.
Lori
Lovely, lovely entry. I agree.
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