The term “documentation” may be a curse of the worker, or it may be a human curse finally granted a name once the brutality of the real-world makes itself known. While in university, the extent of my knowledge of documentation was to never put anything disparaging in writing that could be dug up and reproduced in the future, photo albums & scrapbooks, and Facebook photos. The term has taken on new meaning as a full-time teacher, learning to document everything from student progress to interactions with parents and families. At times I fear the need to document everything limits my ability to be mindful, or at the very least implies that simply being present is not enough.
The term speaks to something more subtle about human nature than such a devastating question as the purpose of mindful existence. It describes how our brains function – the processing and storage of information for later retrieval. Our brains have a finite capacity for what we can store, and how quickly we can retrieve it. Artfully we have engineered means with which to aid our brains in this process through the physical world, which blossomed with digital.
Here, then, I aim to document the exploration of building my website. Whether it be for posterity, future retrieval, or an aid in being present, I am documenting the beginnings of a documentation system. While, of course, the website will provide a much greater service than this, it seems right to begin here. And just as I awkwardly chastised 8th-grade-me when reading a letter I wrote to future-me, I similarly hope that future-me will again find embarrassment and pride in the distance we have travelled.
To the beginnings of an interesting journey,
Jared Brett