Weight
Had a grand old day today helping my friend Kirsteen with her running job at the BBC. She’s helping the Home Front team by doing all their random tasks such as making tea and buying 5 amp plug tops for 13 amp lamps. Having met her at 9.30am on Tottenham Court road we them drove pretty much all the way round London picking up pieces of furniture and other items that shops were willing to lend for the show and hence have some TV coverage. Got to see some places that I’d never seen before, and some that I happen to live round the corner from. Excellent fun.
I’m seriously contemplating cutting down the amount of ways I use electronic media to present myself at the moment. Although I quite enjoy writing to this diary it’s been hard to keep up with what I want to say when I don’t have a fast Internet connection. I’m also starting to wonder how important it is to my own self to keep this stuff in a more private journal. I know a few people would miss reading it apart from me (hi mum).
This reduction in use of electronic channels was also brought home to me the other day when I was looking through old love letters that some of my ancestors sent each other. These are wonderful Victorian cards, with beautiful words in flowing script. The thought of how similar shared words between myself and people I love would never be found in such a permanent manner brought me up short for a moment. Can you see your great grandchildren huddled over an old antique hard drive they found in the attic feeling such a connection to words held as ones and zeros? There seems to be to be so much less weight and importance attached to e-mails, when the reality is that these quickly written and sent words can often have a huge impact that changes lives one way or another. I was going to say ‘for better or worse’ there but change is just change, there is no ‘better or worse’ unless you treat it that way.
Watch out for my new diary written on stone tablets – coming soon to a prehistoric delivery channel near you.