Remembering Stuff

Hi! I originally had a way more inflammatory post in the works, but that didn’t go anywhere. So here’s a second idea I had.

I’ll be honest, there’s likely lots of articles out there about stuff like this. But this post is based on an idea I’ve had for a while.

Also, it’s been almost four months since the last post. I don’t intend to remove the blog, as, among other things, it’s linked on literally almost every page on this site, so removing it would be a pain.

Plus, it’s part of the point of this post.

For a long time, I’ve believed that lots of things can be used to keep records of things that happened. I’ve used at least two for a while.

Like many people, I believe that keeping records of things is important. The human brain can only retain so much information, and some of it will be forgotten. Seriously, I can barely remember some stuff I learned in the previous school year.

There’s also the elephant in the room that is death: all of the memories you have will die with you unless they’re recorded somewhere. That’s why interviews are so valuable.

Lots of people keep a diary, journal, or scrapbook, and lots of people also use pictures to keep records.

Buckminster Fuller, an American architect and philosopher, took this to the extreme with the Dymaxion Chronofile, which was a highly elaborate journal that he used to document his life from 1917 until his death in 1983. And when I say that the journal was elaborate, I mean it. It contains over 140,000 pieces of paper and 64,000 feet of film.

While I might not have as large of a record of stuff, I still have a few things I use.

One thing I use is a very long note I edit in the Notes app. (It’s an Apple thing.) I’ve kept one of those since 2023, though I originally used it to keep unimportant info. That’s probably why I named it the way I did.

However, around the start of April 2024, I started using it for daily journaling. I’m not sure where I got the idea from, but I likely used it to try to help me understand Japanese. From the very beginning, I wrote dates like this:
2024年4月7日
令和6年4月7日
(The second line follows the Japanese regnal year system. Reiwa 6 corresponds to the 6th year of the emperor’s reign, which is 2024.)

Originally, I wrote the dates manually, but then I realized I could just type きょう (今日, today) twice.

However, another thing I use may seem a bit unconventional: my music library. I use a library of music that I manage using the Music app on macOS.

One thing the Music app tracks in your library is how many times you’ve played a song to the end. Another thing it tracks is when you last played a song to the end. When combined with other factors, these two metrics can serve as a reminder of what you were doing and what songs you like.

For instance, I listen to music a lot when I’m out and when I’m working. If there’s lots of songs that I’ve played within a few minutes of each other, that’s a really obvious reminder.

It also shows me what music I used to like. There’s a bunch of songs that I haven’t listened to since last December.

I’ve been wanting to get this post out for months now, so I’ll push it out.

There may be other things you may use to keep records of things, but these are mainly what I use. You might be inspired to start using music to keep track of things. Though, things like YouTube and Spotify kinda interfere with that.