Collaboration across space and time

Let me preface what I am about to write about by saying:

I don’t actually believe in time travel.

But… if I did believe… this is how I know I’m doing it.

I timestamp everything.

My file names. The spines of moleskins; journal entries; work notes; musings.

As Bradshaws do, I couldn’t help but wonder…

• Are my timestamps my version of crop symbols to the celestials?
• Or are they a trans-galactic phone number a’la Stargate?
• Are they here to help me collaborate across time and space?
• And if not huge leaps, at least a night-to-day moment?

I may not answer these in this lifetime, but what I can say: past Leslie often leaves notes for future Leslie. Do you ever do this? If I were to reflect on why I do this, a few things come to mind. Revisiting my “small data” helps me to:

• Remember what hurt and what was wonderful.
• Follow a thread, a scrap, a breadcrumb.
• Stir my thinking again and again.
• Metabolize my experience into wisdom.
• Bear witness to my growth, evolution, resilience.
• Share it at the right time, with the right audience, someday.

Like many good sci fi’s have modeled, you go back in time to sense make of the present.

To do this, I’ve been tracking and exegeting meaning from my digital metadata.

I may not be able to collect and process data at the scale of BiG TeCh, but they can’t decode me and make sense of me like I can.

For more about this trans-temporal adventure, follow me and my crew on Turtle Adventures. This is a brief excerpt from this week's newsletter: Time Travel.