Externalized Memory

“We’ve reached a critical mass point where the amount of memory we have externalized in books and databases (to name but a few sources) now exceeds the amount of memory contained within our collective biological bodies. In other words, there’s more memory “out there” than exists inside “all of us.” We’ve peripheralized our essence.”
- Coupland, Douglas. Microserfs. HarperCollins Books: Toronto, 1995. pg 253

We Are All Storymakers

“We are all storymakers. We use story to organize and control. . . . Human beings strive for order, control and peace but we can never be static. We must change, age, learn more, grow and adapt. So we are always in a cycle of creative struggle, changing and striving to manage our changing and to integrate what we learn into our own story. If during our growing up, for instance, we have suffered trauma . . .To escape the feeling of helplessness and confusion that we carry with us we need to organize, package, index our experience, do what we mean when we say “get a handle on it,” so that we can carry the baggage of our experience comfortably and not have bits and pieces falling all over the place. This is what we do when we ‘story’ it.”
- Gold, Joseph. Read For Your Life: Literature as a Life Support System. Fitzhenry and Whiteside: Markham, 1990. pg 51-52

What Now!?!

“A man’s only as big as the shadows he casts
so I keep my eyes and ears open like everyday was my last
stay on the front line and do what I do
cause it’s running through me
you can call it what you want, I write the lyrics that move me
don’t have any idea of where I’ll be in a year
maybe possibly over there, maybe still stuck here
I take it day to day and let it flow naturally
re-up refresh reiterate and recharge my battery
camaraderie my sanity relies on my rhetoric
cause my notebook’s like a journal-my own personal specialist
what now? well I don’t know, I just go where the music is
let it lead me where I’m going, make it fresh and keep doing it
it’s a mystery, at least it is to me, it’s unknown
so let’s make history and listen as progression is shown”
- Def 3 + Moka Only “What now!”from the album “Dog River”

In the Presence of Extraordinary

“It's overwhelming really. So much purports to be extraordinary everywhere you go, it's hard to say what really is anymore. But like an elegantly articulated brushstroke or a perfect piece of music, or even a flawed one, you know it when you see it. It fills you with a flush. It holds your breath for you. You know you're in the presence of extraordinary when there's just no guessing. And the only thought you can carry is a determination to do even better yourself.”
- Narrator on Everwood (The narrator also plays a character on the show. This is a picture of him)

Boring Titles

Sometimes it takes me a long time to catch on to things. For instance, when I first started collecting quotations and forming them into a commonplace book, I numbered the entries. I thought that this would help me organize them and find them easier.

The only problem is that the numbers don’t organize my collection very well. The numbers, in and of themselves, have no meaning. I would need to file each number under a specific subject. And so far, I haven’t been able to do that.

I have been labelling entries with key words but I have way too many of them to make them as useful as they could be.

It’s strange that this has taken me 20 weeks to realize. But now I see that a short title to each entry makes it easier to find the quotes. So I will be titling entries from now on. I will also go back to previous entries and give them more descriptive titles as well. I will also try to clean up my labelling system to make it more succinct and efficient.

If you have any ideas or would like to help me collect quotations, please let me know. You can comment here or send me an email. Thanks.

Have a Life

“Maybe thinking you’re supposed to ‘have a life’ is a stupid way of buying into an untenable 1950s narrative of what life’s *supposed* to be.”
- Coupland, Douglas. Microserfs. HarperCollins Books: Toronto, 1995. pg 187

Most Prolific Art

“Story is not only our most prolific art form but rivals all activities—work, play, eating, exercise—for out waking hours.”
- McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principals of Screenwriting. ReganBooks: New York, 1997. pg 11