A friend, not knowing I didn't have any such inclination, set up a reading for me with a psychic. To be polite, I went. She asked me several times if I had questions for her, but I couldn't think of any, so we shared stories. At some point she asked me if I'd ever written any of these stories down—and the conversation went something like this: No. Why not? Because they're my stories, my life experiences; everyone has his own; what relevance could my stories have to anyone else? You're wrong; you have no idea how something you've written—even something relatively unimportant to you—could just touch the next person in ways that you cannot possibly anticipate. Okay, I'll think about it; thank you.
Three days later I had an appointment with my primary care physician (who is also a close friend), and I was telling him a story that had some relevance to him. He then asked me if I'd ever written any of these stories down—and the conversation went something like this: No. Why not? Because they're my stories, my life experiences; everyone has his own; what relevance could my stories have to anyone else? You're wrong; you have no idea how something you've written—even something unimportant—could just touch the next person in ways that you cannot possibly anticipate. Can't help but notice: EVEN THE SAME WORDING!
Now, whenever I write a story, I send a bcc to myself and am collecting them in a folder. The next question is if I'll do something with the contents of the folder. Check back next year.... Keep the diaries in whatever form, though as previously pointed out, digitizing them is easiest in terms of storage. A huge amount can be put on a single CD; if one wants to include pictures, use a blank DVD which holds as much as several CDs. You can then give them to those family members whom you feel would most value the contents.
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