Diaries

In the days before I discovered blogging and LJ, I used to write nearly-daily e-mail missives to a list of friends; it was our way of keeping abreast of each others' activities between dinner & theater nights or such. It was particularly important as my circle of friends expanded beyond across international borders and casual contact was impossible.

Sitting on my filing cabinet for many years has been a 4" binder filled with print-outs of my diary entries from 1991-3, along with a small folder of handwritten notes. Taking advantage of my office photocopier's ability to scan documents, I've converted the lot into 50 MB of PDF files. Now if I just had some means of converting the PDF files of typed text into plain ASCII files...

I flipped open the binder at random to read a handful of entries, just out of curiosity. I was surprised how many names, places and events I've long since forgotten. I'm also a little shocked how relatively carefree I was, even though at the time I obsessed about many things I've come to recognize as trivial; I suppose we grow into the roles & requirements placed upon us. As hard as it is to imagine, I was considerably more volatile, erratic and unfocused back then than I am today; in another 15 years, I'm surely going to look back on myself today and sigh with patronizing frustration.

Had I a time machine, I'd be sorely tempted to go back to give myself some advice to smooth out the peaks & valleys. Then again, perhaps the device might be better used to go back earlier in my life to pull the strings to make it all happen sooner so I could learn the hard lessons earlier when they'd be less harmful to others. Then again, with the inherent paradox of time travel, perhaps I will/already have. :-)

Diaries

In the days before I discovered blogging and LJ, I used to write nearly-daily e-mail missives to a list of friends; it was our way of keeping abreast of each others' activities between dinner & theater nights or such. It was particularly important as my circle of friends expanded beyond across international borders and casual contact was impossible.

Sitting on my filing cabinet for many years has been a 4" binder filled with print-outs of my diary entries from 1991-3, along with a small folder of handwritten notes. Taking advantage of my office photocopier's ability to scan documents, I've converted the lot into 50 MB of PDF files. Now if I just had some means of converting the PDF files of typed text into plain ASCII files...

I flipped open the binder at random to read a handful of entries, just out of curiosity. I was surprised how many names, places and events I've long since forgotten. I'm also a little shocked how relatively carefree I was, even though at the time I obsessed about many things I've come to recognize as trivial; I suppose we grow into the roles & requirements placed upon us. As hard as it is to imagine, I was considerably more volatile, erratic and unfocused back then than I am today; in another 15 years, I'm surely going to look back on myself today and sigh with patronizing frustration.

Had I a time machine, I'd be sorely tempted to go back to give myself some advice to smooth out the peaks & valleys. Then again, perhaps the device might be better used to go back earlier in my life to pull the strings to make it all happen sooner so I could learn the hard lessons earlier when they'd be less harmful to others. Then again, with the inherent paradox of time travel, perhaps I will/already have. :-)