Photo by topnatthapon

A line I heard today brought me here to post this. I’m certain there are several variations, but the version I heard is easy to remember.

“The faintest ink is better than the best memory.”

Going through notes I’d jotted down, long ago and more recently, reminded me that false memory is a real thing, and that misremembering something can be as troublesome as completely forgetting it. I’ve experienced both in the past few weeks as I’ve stumbled upon notes, whose details are not the way I’d remembered — or of which I had no recall.

Even now, as the world around me distracts me, I’m losing focus about the points I wanted to make in this post. Ideas fade so quickly sometimes. But my main post is: Write it down.

On a piece of paper. On a receipt. On your hand. Or dictate it and record it. Get it on the record, so to speak. Preserve it. Now. Before you forget it.

A Google search revealed different versions of the quotation, most frequently identified as a Chinese proverb. Who’s to say who first said it, and with what words, and in what language? Sayings get passed around, passed down, and they are modified, tweaked, altered — often because of faulty memory (which brings us back to the original point of this).

The same Google search also led to a “Mad Men” episode that quoted the proverb.

There is more of that theme here.

I talked a bit about false memory in an earlier post, and on another blog a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. This makes me wonder how often I will revisit the topic here. Often, I suspect.

A big reason for the existence of this journal, which we can call a blog for lack of a better term, is that in my search for answers to all of the questions, I hope to be able to help someone else in whatever way I can — even if it helps move them forward in only the smallest of ways. So I repeat my advice, my reason for coming here: Write it down.

I meant what I said about even in the smallest of ways. Not everything has to be big. I tend to forget that as I search for meaning in XXL sizes. Baby steps are fine, and usually more realistic than our expectations. I’m often reminded to be OK with little.

With that in mind, a bonus video (which happens to feature a few glimpses of my nephew in the second half of the song).

One more time: Whatever it is, if you think you might want to recall it someday, do yourself a favor.

Write it down.