I've been thinking a lot about diaries this year. Julie brought me a lovely leather bound one for our anniversary, and I carry it with me now. I've also a hankering to be one of the transcribers to Anne Lister's diaries, but that's a labour of love, not one for a full time employee who also does a lot of volunteering work in his spare time. And of course there is this on-line blog diary. But the paper diary is a joy to hold, tactile and at A6 size small enough to be nonrestrictive. For some reason however after doing some paperwork and admin, I wrote this short passage in the diary this afternoon. 1 year hence to the day. Why I wonder? It just struck me to write it. We often write in retrospective. But occasionally I've written notes to myself or others in the future. Some I've found again, others lost to the four winds of change.
In 365 days time this on-line blog will cease to be, as I've decided to delete it when October comes. After saving all the entries and then the plan is to have them bound in a book. I therefore find myself writing something for the future, in a medium that in the future won't exist. Yet what I wrote in the diary (and now write about on-line) will always exist, both in the future or in the past. Yet on Saturday July 18th 2020, for one day, these words will be the present. And the day I wrote this, i.e today, will be a year ago. Just one single day at a time, out of thousands we all live in our lives, is a present day. Everything else we live for, exist for, aspire to, is either in our receding memories, or in our minds as we look forward. Neither exist in the present, or in reality. I can though hold that pencil again.
I'm sure there is a philosophical discussion in there somewhere to unravel.
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