2DREZQ

Dicto increpito postremo (Write to call out to the future)



I’ve read Charles Carroll’s book on Leonardo da Vinci. It’s a fairly well written and worth the time, if you are interested in Leonardo to begin with. What strikes me about Leonardo is how he lives on in more than just his art. Leonardo wrote things down. His notebooks have done as much to make him immortal as his art. The genius that he was lives on because he took the time to preserve his ideas for the ages. He gave us all a gift. Perhaps he did it for that very reason, perhaps not.

I’m not the genius he was, and I doubt the world will ever care what I thought, or what clever ideas came to me. But I, too, have decided to pass something on to the future. It may never matter to anyone other than my children, but that is enough.

Maybe I’m wasting my time telling you this. The sort of people who read Blogs are probably already inclined to preserve their thoughts for posterity. I just think that blogging might not be enough.

In 1991 I started my ‘da Vinci journal’. It’s one of those hardcover blank books you can buy at Waldenbooks or B.Dalton. I set it aside in 1992, and only picked it up again in 2005.
I don’t intend to lapse again.
It contains the better sections of stories and books I’ve tried to write, ideas for inventions, philosophy, theories about human nature and communication, ideas for sermons and clever phrases I’ve thought up.
It isn’t Hemmingway, Hawking, or Kant.
It doesn’t have to be.
Someday I’ll be gone (so will you!), and whatever I leave behind will belong to my kids. I want to leave them something less tangible than money (don’t have any), or possessions. I want them to have something that came from my head.
I know people who keep a daily journal, and that’s a good thing. But a journal that doesn’t do any more than detail daily events falls short. A diary may contains your thoughts and feelings, and that, too, is good, but do more.
A da Vinci journal should contain as much originality as you can put down on paper. You think you're not smart enough? Try it. You just might surprise yourself.

Who knows; maybe in 500 years Amazon.com will be selling translations of your ideas to millions of readers.