MAKING LISTS

   Some people, like myself, are just list people. I reflexively keep my mind organized with lists. I have multiple lists, which sometimes overlap, but for the most part are autonomous. Some are digital and some are written by hand.
  A list is a sort of challenge, a comedy of an attempt, a race against fate, and a cause and effect fiesta to watch how much your list drifts from the actual happenings that make up your day. It would be interesting if we all went back at the end of the day (for our daily lists, as opposed to monthly, short-term, long-term, and master) and revised them to show what ended up happening at a given time, as compared to what was planned.
  I imagine a future full of more lists. True, everything will be so automated that the list is replaced with personal reminders we earn by simply speaking our appointments and plans into the air, but there will still be a list of some sort in the circuitry of the computer -  a line of code, perhaps, but a direct heir of that scrap of paper torn from a notebook sitting near someone's hand when they decided to write fruit, soap powder, toothpaste, ground beef, and beer on it.
  A thousand years from now, our lists will be archived in museums as ancient relics, historical research tools. Picture it: A worn piece of ruled yellow paper with a genuine 21^st century coffee ring stain near the top right corner.

1. Pick up dog food
2. Clean weapon
3. Balance checkbook (these are the generic examples)
4. Finish battle update briefing slides
5. Burn paperwork from last week
(imagine the fun they'll have, trying to understand what we were doing)
6. Deconflict network settings: IAVA patches for new server
7. Read Chapters 4-6 from Brit Lit 4501, rough draft of essay
8. Call Mercedes dealership
9. Cancel pedicure
10.Call collection agency back
 

   In these futuristic museums, our lists will appear the same way hieroglyphics do to us now - symbols etched on paper or reproduced from Microfiche. Lists are not only important organizational tools, flag posts at which we can shoot the azimuth of our days, but they are timeless relics, documents of period study for future enthusiasts of the past.
Possible stats could even be interesting:

1985: Number of list entries containing the words Michael Jackson - 965,338

2002: Number of list entries pertaining to computer hardware/software/games/files  -  80,532,477

2007: Number of list entries containing the work Iraq/Al Qaeda/ Terrorism - 700,023,854
 

   A simple list is a bit of free verse, a look into the age and mindset and priorities of an individual in a given time; but it is also a cross-section of that society, that age, that era, that social class.
  Yes, the list is a powerful document that is taken for granted, when it should be cherished - an instantaneous historical reference point.
  Like now, I can turn off this computer and line through "Blog" on a list that has four entries scratched out, two circled with stars next to them, and one highlighted, then scratched out.
  I say go on, you people, try to keep it together. Keep scribbling away in your leather planners, in your parchment journals, on your dirty napkins - challenge the inertia of possibility -

go ahead and write your Lists. 

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