Karthick Gopal

I generally don’t like talking about myself. So I found the vlogging part hard when I tried because I didn’t want to see myself on camera all the time.

I am interested in others and their stories, not in propagating mine. So I never wrote about my specific thoughts, even though I thought them a lot.

As I watch my baby grow, the captured memories and feelings in my brain start to blend in. It’s hard to keep them all in my head, and it is harder to remember them all.

Capturing pictures and videos helps, but they are open to interpretation. You could look at an image and form your conclusions. Even if you capture them in photos, there’s a subjective interpretation to it. Those aren’t my thoughts on what happened or how I felt.

That epiphany struck today. If my baby grows up to read what I have written, there’d be my interpretation. It could be agreed upon or debated, but it would be captured for posterity.

That’s why I urge you to document what’s happening around you. You don’t have to go into over-editing-perfectionism, which I can assure you is the bane of creation.

Just start writing things down as they come, but write them from your point of view. Capture images with little notes. Write letters to people so your kids and loved ones see what your handwriting is like.

It is true what they say, when you write you have clearer thoughts. Maybe not better. But clearer interpretations and rehashing of events. It oddly reinforces the memory in your mind and selects the ones you keep and the ones you discard.