This system of documents more or less boils down to that preoccupation with memory that I’ve always had, but only recently begun to articulate in conversations with Jess, Kyle, Avvai, Ferdinand et al.
Preoccupation frequently arises from fear, and I think it is true to say that I fear forgetting. Which is odd in a way, because my beliefs about the durability of ideas could just as plausibly inspire an easy calm. My forgetting an idea can hardly be said to imperil the idea itself, so my fear must arise from my own self-interest in — perhaps even greed for — Ideas.
On some level, I don’t believe that I really have ideas, rather ideas have me,
Consider the obsessiveness with which creators birth new ideas into the world, which we’ve clinically termed “intrinsic motivation”, but don’t really seem to understand beyond that. We can observe that it is happening, but we don’t know what actually causes someone to drive themselves nearly to death just so they can give an idea a beating heart and a chance at survival in the world. “Because I had to” or “Because I couldn’t stop thinking about it” are symptoms, not causes.
But still I fear losing that which feels important, ie. that which might become yet more interesting,
Presumably man’s spirit should be elevated if he can better review his shady past and analyze more completely and objectively his present problems. He has built a civilization so complex that he needs to mechanize his records more fully if he is to push his experiment to its logical conclusion and not merely become bogged down part way there by overtaxing his limited memory. His excursions may be more enjoyable if he can reacquire the privilege of forgetting the manifold things he does not need to have immediately at hand with some assurance that he can find them again if they prove important.
