Paltry concerns in Reiwa 6

Sometimes I imagine people reading my diary off in the future as an insight into the modern era. That’s a horrifying thought. In the past, I believed that I was insightful enough to provide some kind of value through the writing itself, but I don’t really have that any more.
It’s bothered me for a while. Why does one keep a diary?
There’s “because-it’s-cool”, which is why I started mine back in the day. There’s a desire to record things. There’s a desire to remember things. There’s a desire to digest. I think there are even people who are, for whatever reason, natural diarists. Heaven help them. I think that I’ve been all of these (aside from natural diarist) at some point in my life, but while I do have several hundred pages of accumulated diary, I can’t really imagine that it’s been of any use to me or to anybody else. It’s the kind of thing I do when I need to feel like I’m doing something worthwhile. At least, nowadays.
I think that at my best, and maybe the best for most of us, is the idea of digesting things. For much of my life, I always thought that using actual experiences and things to fuel art and creativity was just a line that people used to show off how valuable their experiences were. That’s probably true for the most part, but I am realizing that sometimes external creation is the means of digesting something so that we can keep what’s good and, well, pass what’s bad. It doesn’t always work, but, when it does, it’s probably pretty darned useful. Somethings being explicit and clear makes a difference, and sometimes we’ve just got to say something to a diary because we don’t have enough of an audience already.
I remember reading, “All art is quite useless,” and launching off in my weird and hideous Oscar Wilde phase. I learned some lessons there, but not soon enough, as is usually the case. Well, diaries are, for the most part, useless. I don’t see that they’ve ever done a bit of good to anybody who wasn’t writing an obscure thesis.
But they’ve probably done a lot of good. Because people keep writing them.
Somebody tried to kill President Trump recently (written for posterity), but there’s really nothing of value that I can add to this discussion. But, oh man, if I had some experience with a girl, you can bet I’d be talking about it.
I’ll be honest: There’s a part of me that misses having an audience for these. I used to be able to count on a small one. And there was a time I was so spoiled for social choice that I’d tell people to just read my diary rather than talking. My goodness how things have changed in twenty years.
Twenty years. It felt so sweet to say the first time, but it’s gone bitter.
If I could go back and tell my 20 year old self something, I’d tell him to do everything different than he wanted to, and that none of his plans were going to work out, so he’d best figure out some new ones.
It hurts to admit that here, because I’m fairly certain Courtney still stalks me here, and I hate to lose to her. It’s a petty thing to say, but it’s a petty thing to feel, and I’m a petty person for feeling that way. May as well say it, then.
I miss a lot of things, but I can’t muster the wherewithal to go after them. At least not with any strength. I’ve got some, but even bitterness, pettiness, and envy aren’t the fuels that they used to be. And I used to always be able to count on those three.
There’s plenty of good in my life, to be sure. But it doesn’t translate well to the page, and it doesn’t feel very real when I’m staring down the barrel of a double university Monday. But maybe, just maybe, this will help me to digest things a bit.