I admit that I not only save other people’s posts, but entire blogs.
Sometimes, there are entries I like to read over again. Other times, I just like to be reminded of how right I was. But more often than not, it’s the ephemeral nature of blogs in general, combined with the fickle nature of adolescent writers still trying to “define themselves” on a free medium, that gives me the itch to save. So many writers I used to follow have changed domain names, started protecting their entries, or deleted their blogs.
Some things are garbage and should be forgotten or thrown away — but some things deserve to be kept too. Word-for-word, exactly the way it was spoken, because that’s the way it was expressed.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your point-of-view, our words do last. Just because they aren’t there anymore, doesn’t mean they were never spoken.
There are consequences to the things we write, whether we want them or not.
There are several blogs I wish I had done that with. Not only writings, but pictures… but now I just have faint memories of the pictures, or just memories of the feelings that the picture evoked. Did I ever send you the link to where my old blog entries are archived?
Pictures are definitely worth saving too. You may remember the essence of an entry from the words, but images slowly fade with time.
You never gave me the link to your old archives, although you did mention it before. Send away!
Yes, same here. Wish I’d saved. And wished someone would have kept blogging or left it up or pointed forward instead of vanishing into ether. It emulates real life I suppose, the complete disappearances with nothing but neural traces.
I think it also emulates real life in that things aren’t kept unless someone has a desire or purpose.
I agree… I usually end up remembering and linking back to stuff that inspires me or moves me…
But I’ve never thought to archive someone’s entire blog.
It’s easier to preserve a moment’s brilliance if it’s written, I feel, rather than spoken… I think spoken words can lose their original meaning if they aren’t taken down and preserved correctly.
I love reading through your old posts.
One of the reasons why I started saving blogs is because I would link to a great entry by someone, only to have their blog disappear. It’s all over my comments as well; if you go back just two years and visit the pages of people who have left comments, most of them don’t work anymore.
The problem with spoken words is that they’re often spoken in the heat of the moment, or perhaps not thought through. It makes it that much easier for the original meaning to be lost.
I didn’t one could grab an entire blog…I just grab photos (not to reproduce, just to keep). Not yours though, since I would ask you first, and since I would presume they’d always be there. They will won’t they? I think of your blog like a book. I would take it off the shelf as I wished and replace it, as if it would always be there.
I hope to have my blog around for a very long time, after I’m dead even. The book analogy is great. I hope other people view my blog the same way.