Documentation obsession.

"We’re in a generation where, if you don’t document it, it didn’t occur." - Jesse Eisenberg

I’m obsessed with documentation. This mainly comes out in the form of photos. I know I can get annoying with the amount I’ll pull my camera out, but I love having that image that will evoke that memory that will just…be there afterwards (I also like the aesthetics of photographs, though I’m not good at taking good ones…but when a wonderful one occasionally appears through my camera lens it makes me wonderfully happy).

I also write blog posts and take dailybooth pictures and I’ve started making videos. And there’s facebook statuses. There’s a facebook app that, at the end of the year, you can go back and see all your old statuses and put them in images which you will then…well, have. I write facebook statuses with this in mind; thinking that at the end of the year, I’ll have that record.

Sometimes I take photographs or write statuses that completely share (or, as far as any experience can be shared) with those who see it. But sometimes I write or photograph things that mean something to me, but me alone (or me and people I shared the experience with); a quote, maybe, but a quote that has significance for what I’m doing or feeling at the time, or a photo of a landscape or object, but that evokes so much more with me.  

I also collect objects that remind me of things; this I’ve done all my life, literally as long as I can remember, but I have recently been doing it with a new kind of fanaticism and (some) attention to order. I love going through the things and thinking about things I’ve done and things I’ve seen and things I’ve experienced.

There are three key reasons why I’m so obsessed with doing this. First, I have this massive paranoia about…not doing anything with my life. I don’t mean, like, not really accomplishing anything (though I have that too somewhat…), but just about, being lazy and not ever really experiencing enough or creating enough or just having enough fun…I think because I am pretty naturally lazy and apathetic, and this is something I’m constantly working against. And my various forms of documentation are proof, to myself, that I have done things and am doing things.

I also just love looking at things and remembering. If things were good…or even if they weren’t good, but were powerful or important or significant…it’s nice to be able to somewhat relive those emotions from that time or experience. Clearly, there’s such a thing as spending too much dwelling on the past. But a little is just…it’s nice.

And finally…it helps me make some sort of sense of my life. With photos and fragmented pieces of prose and random quotes and video clips and leaflets and old tickets and old programmes and old newspaper clippings and many, many other bits and pieces I’ve collected…by sorting them out and having them to look at, it feels like I can make some sense of and have some grasp of what has past. You don’t know what’s coming, but you know what happened, and you can string it together to make some sort of flow. I’m a natural storyteller (I don’t mean I’m good at telling or writing stories, I just mean that my brain naturally works with and forms narratives) and understanding the narrative of my life makes me feel so much more…secure. Content. Real. Working out what’s happening in my life, backwards.

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." - Soren Kierkegaard