A snipet of interest

I found this today while going through a box of material being prepared for a donation. I'm not sure the version I found was 'true' but it makes sense the way I found it. It makes reference to a particular deity; however replace that name with the one of your choice and the overall message remains the same. I do not know who this man was, nor what his role in this world was. I do wonder if he wasn't perhaps an archivist.

As the wise men have not spoken
I speak, who am only a fool
But a fool that hath loved his folly,
Aye more than the wise their book
Or their counting houses of their quiet homes
Or their fame in the mouths of men.

A fool that in all his days
Hath done never a prudent thing
I have squandered the splendid days
That the Lord God gave to my youth
In attempting impossible things
Deeming them alone worth the toil
O Lord, if I had those years
I would squander them over again.
Aye, fling them from me!

For this I have heard in my heart,
That a man shall squander not hoard
Shall do the deed of today
Not take heed of tomorrow's ten
Shall not bargain or huckster with God.

The Lawyers have met in council:
The men with the long keen faces
And have said, "This man is a fool."
And others have said, "He blasphemeth."

For the wise have pitied the fool
Who had striven to give a life
In this world of Time and Space
Among the bulks of actual things
To a dream that was dreamed in the heart
And that only the heart could hold.

-Padraigh Pearse

My "date" with Max Allen

I am just arriving home from an impromptu interview between my colleague Allison Larsh, myself and Max Allen. What an overwhelming experience. The man can speak about art history, censorship, popular culture, pornography, librarians… you name it. I felt like I didn’t want to leave in case he said something else that no one else has ever written.

One gets the feeling that Allen has written a large volume of material, and equally that no one else has written a large volume of material about Allen himself. Someday he will be viewed as a pioneer in the evolution of censorship in academic environments. Today, he was a gracious host, a charming personality, a truly unique character and likely one of the most straight-shooting people I’ve ever met.

I found it to be particularly inspiring learning that Allen was born an American. Perhaps someday, I could possess the worldly class and genuine charisma of the man I met today. I still can’t believe I’m one of the lucky two people in the world who has seen his archival collection and his personal collection.

Above all, I have renewed faith in the concept of a ‘donor.’ Never again will I be so formal in my approach. Max told me that isn’t the way to get it done. And I believe him.

Who I Am

Some people are meant for great things: accomplishments, culture-shifts, historical events. These are our heroes and our villains. Their lives help tell the tales we teach each other today in order to help understand both ourselves and our relationships.

I am not meant to be a hero or a villain. I am merely a custodian. I will care for the records which provide value and depth to our understanding of the world around us. I will not show privledge or bias on the basis of my own judgements; I will let the biases of society and culture provide me with what it will, and I will care for all of it with equal respect to the utmost of my ability. I will care for all records, regardless of format, because the manuscripts of Atwood are as important as Egoyan's camera original negatives or Model's prints.

I will probably fade from history's memory within a few generations of my family. I will not find the cure for cancer, end the "conflict" (war) in the Middle East, bring any culture to the peak or bowels of its potential along my way through life. But while I am here I believe I can be of the most appropriate, constructive use to society by being its custodian for the documentary remains of heroes and villains. It is who I am - I am an archivist.

Being overwhelmed

I'll admit I am overwhelmed.

Many of my classmates have already turned in the keys to their locker and said "so long!" to this building. Some of us have even found employment for the short and long-term.

I'm still in this building. I'm still slugging it out in my job as a contracted records manager. Everyday I see the faculty and staff that so many of my classmates are already forgetting about.

Its makes me laugh a little - such is the life of the archivist! Most people have forgotten about the documents and records that we handle by the time we get our white-gloved hands on them. This is partially what overwhelms me - I have not had a break and I have not felt a release from this place yet. I feel like although my capacity has shifted from student to employee, I'm still interacting with people based on my understanding of and relationship with them as a student.

There is also the naturally overwhelming characteristic of a bulk of unwieldy material. Entropy has occurred and chaos now blossoms from what once was order. The physical and the intellectual collide constantly in a battle that, in my mind, resembles the relationship between the ocean and the shoreline. The ocean will continue to bash away at the shoreline, and its progress while measurable will be slow. The shoreline will continue to be there to complete the physics equation in which every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Small signs are evident of the effect these two colossal fighters have on one another - the shoreline will degrade over time and the sand will cloud the otherwise pure water. The ocean is the intellectual side of archiving - somewhat more mailable than the shoreline, constantly seeking to be level in the ultimate reflection of balance between the air and the water. The shoreline is the physical side of archiving - it can be affected by hard-nosed intellectual decisions but it is what it is: heaping, endless mounds of stuff.

That was a long, mostly useless metaphor but its been in my head all day and now its out. Deal with it. Plus, thinking of this "stuff" (c'mon y'know I wanna say crap) like that makes me less frustrated with all of it. It is what it is.

Feeling overwhelmed by work is not a bad thing, it simply means I'm busy doing what I love. But now that school is over, being overwhelmed by the success of my classmates is a definite distraction I'm having to cope with.