Based on The Secret Diary of William Byrd (1709 - 1712)
If I were Jesus sitting under a fig tree, I would look at William Byrd and say, “there’s a man without guile – because God has forgiven all.” The lifestyle of William has many quirks; he is enlightened, indulgent, well connected, and whimsical. He also is a successful businessperson with an elaborate lifestyle. He is obviously pious too, which is characteristic of the civilization during his period. These inferences show a busy man, and it is intriguing that as fun as his life could have been for the average person that knew him, it gets boring fast on print from redundancy. I imagine that most supposed busy people live just like this and might be bored after all.
OK maybe not entirely. Nonetheless, this diary goes a good way to suggest why people get tired of activities no matter how cool and engaging another might find it. OK, so sky diving is cool! In fact, it is awesome! I could do this the rest of my life… until I start. Soon, I begin to realize the deficit of energy, but let us assume that I love what I do nonetheless. How will it sound describing it to a group of people? Awesome! OK. Now how would it sound describing it again to the same group on day 8, and 7, and 6, and 5? By the fourth day, all they will need to disband leaving my ‘kinda’ boring sky life will be a little mutt running across the street. Better still they may try to make me stop with the overused question, “OK, so what else do you do?” I had better have a decent vocation. No matter how sophisticated a job or life is, some routine to it eventually exasperates even the person living the life or job.
I like the way William reads a different language daily. Perhaps reading those languages in a similar pattern would make one more learned with those tongues. William’s life was not too different from what would be typical today. IT Professionals, for example, study emerging technologies. Application programmers will try to learn a little about networking to boost the design of their applications. Some designers are taking their wits from the traditional board to the computer screen, which comes at a learning cost. People may not have changed after all.
Say we follow a popular teenager around with a camera; I already dislike the imagination. The kid sits for hours playing a video game; he then gets refreshed and strolls out to hang with friends. They may play some more video games and get on YouTube – one screen to another, then to a portable screen. He is with his friends, but he fits his earphone into an ear. The group of buddies exchanges a few concise words, then a brief outburst of laughter ending as sharply as it broke. Looking at the faces, one cannot even tell who laughed or did not. These boys are just busy being cool. Then one wonders, is this it?! It looks as though attendance is all that matters. In my first days in the US, it took a considerable while for me to wrap my mind around this strange social behavior. Friends did not talk much; they just shared a vocation, hummed, nodded, and headed home. Every once in a while they will banter at each other, but it was mostly superficial, nothing personal – more like a club with everyone warily looking for the next point to add to his respect tally while guarding the gauge. It was an awkward disconnect for me. I never stopped asking myself those three words, “is this it?!” After waiting patiently for the big bang, it never happened.
On curiosity, I eavesdropped on a group of cute girls chatting. They were relaxed, and one could tell that they were having a sincere conversation. My experience with the boys had gotten me inquisitive to know whether the boys were just being guys or if this was more rooted. The ladies spoke much more, but I could not listen for long. I have never heard such randomness in my entire life! One of them talked about a pedestrian she saw crossing an intersection on her way to school. Okay? That was it. I gave a quick look at the faces of her friends, and they were not outraged, they just headed in other directions: camping, holiday, spring, boyfriend, and schoolwork. While these topics could be appealing, from the quick bite sentences of those girls, I will go with William’s diary for another year! I resolutely decided that these women’s mind was not a place I would like to be in at all. Good thoughts and good humor, thanks be to God Almighty (Byrd, 1709).
Maybe there was a good reason for the phasing out of diaries. It just is not for this generation. In a riveting twist, however, this generation documents more than any prior. The social media, texts, and email accounts, equipped with a calendar, leave the digital traces of an individual from the announcement of his conception by his or her parents to the declaration of his or her death. Nonetheless, even the more sophisticated documentation of digital dossier does not seem to make the printed experience any more exotic. ...
Mcmichael, George, and James S. Leonard, comps. "The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover, 1709 - 1712." Concise Anthology of American Literature. 6th ed. New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2006.149-171. Print.
"YouTube - Digital Dossier." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Web. 27 Feb. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79IYZVYIVLA&feature=player_embedded#at=243>.
"Private Life and Digital Traces."AnnikensUnivers. Web. 27 Feb. 2011. <http://annikensunivers.blogspot.com/2010/04/abuse-of-private-information-on-web.html>.
This is my favourite
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