Why am I documenting my life?

Ordinary moments don’t have value right now, but they will have value over time. We might think that mundane things will stay the same forever, but they don’t.

I took the following notes from a vlogger that I admire called Riza :

Because we don’t know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really.

How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, an afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can’t even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four, five times more, perhaps not even that.

How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps 20. And yet it all seems limitless.

Riza

How do I document my life?

I like writing, so I’ll start with a journal. I’ll also get a video camera and I’ll start with one that’s the most convenient to use. I’ll also learn to edit videos because I want to romanticize my life by recording my adventures as something that my future self would like.

I’m the subject and reporter of my own life. When I talk to myself in a video, it’s like I’m asking and answering questions out loud.

Journaling

I have a Google Doc where I write an entry about my day every night. Sometimes I forget to do it, but that’s okay. It doesn’t need to be perfect, and it can have as much detail as I want. It’s a Google Doc for now, but I feel I’d value a physical journal a lot because I could handwrite it! Maybe I’ll do that later.

There’s a template at the top with the following questions:

[today's date]

* I am grateful for:
* Positive self affirmation:
* What did I experience today?
* Good for someone today?
* What will I do better tomorrow?

Some days, I feel like reading a few entries from the past. It feels great to go back in time to see what I did in my life and how I grew as a person from that moment in time.

I also have a special doc for dreams. I’m trying to get better at being able to have vivid dreams where I remember more details of my dreams. Regardless of having a happy or sad vivid dream, I record it so my future self can remember it.

Photos

I got myself an Instax camera and I used it on a trip abroad. While I’m able to capture things in the moment with my phone and I can share them online, it doesn’t have the same value as taking a physical picture in the moment and sharing it with someone.

Video

I decided to get a nice vlogging camera called DJI Osmo Pocket 3. It’s great because it’s very compact and has a stabilizer. I learned the basics about photography and video editing with Davinci Resolve, and I practice summarizing a series of random clips that I took during the day.

Reflecting on my life

Every 4 months, I write a small essay about my life for that 4-month period. Every year on my birthday, I wrote a longer essay about my life during the past year. I capture highlights about the things that I did and the progress on the objectives I set for myself in a previous essay. Writing these thoughts is a great way to reflect on my life.

To help me on this reflection, I use NotebookLM, which helps me remember details of my life. I chat with it to see big-picture topics in the goals I’ve set. This is an interesting way to do therapy :).