I read an excellent novel last weekend, Dana Spiotta’s Stone Arabia. Like any good novel, it’s about many things, but in particular, it made me think about the issue of self-curation.
In his “Chronicles,” the character Nik elaborately archives his work in music and an alternate autobiography. He tells his sister Denise, “Self-curate or disappear.”
As I was reading, I realized: I suffer from archive anxiety. Partly about my actual life, which is why I’ve adopted resolutions such as Keep a one-sentence journal and Suffer for fifteen minutes. They help me chronicle my life.
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I am an avid self-curator, and have been for decades.
I have pulled now-published stories and articles out of my journals, and have also used them as medical documentation for a loved one.
Every so often (months or sometimes years apart), I type up my handwritten journal. That makes it searchable and ultimately takes much less time than keeping index cards, which I had done pre-computer. For me, the typing binges place forgotten details in new perspectives. Working with larger chunks of material also clues me in to patterns I might not have seen otherwise.
For me, self-curation is a passion. The journaling itself plays multiple roles. As far as time use and how I treat all that material are concerned, I never know whether and how a particular passage will come in handy. My personal mantra is, “Nothing is wasted.”
With respect to finding those materials, I rely on search functions for both text and photos, through the use of organizing software for text and online storage (employing descriptions and tags) for photos.