Looking at the legacy of the first generation of women to breathe life into a global digital connection is no mean feat. Looking at it before it is completed is also problematic. Examining something of which we are a part is just what thoughtful people do. We cannot get outside the system of which we are a part. We are also part of a process, so there really is no beginning or end to that process.
But we can be as inclusive as possible. We can state our intentions, our frames, our biases, as best we can.
That means we should include our travails. What they were or are, and how we traversed the difficult times and situations. Where we stumbled. Our daughters, and our sons, deserve to know what we did, how we survived, thrived, and faced adversity. So many generations before us sanitized their lives for our consumption. I wonder how they thought this would help us cope with real life. Did they value propriety over their own descendants? I do not think we want to make the same mistakes.
Many times such information is kept from those we want only to protect. Or that is what we say. We do not want those we love to feel sorry for us, or think us weak. This is why journals are burned or left in dusty attic boxes. Some of these concerns are mitigated if:
- we disclose from a stance of power and learning
- we directly leave the information for a person to read, as in a journal with notes to the intended reader
- we edit our memoirs into chapters including “How I Succeeded” or “What I Learned from the Bad Times”
- ask our children, nieces, nephews, and grandchild, what they would like to know about us
- leave note or thumb drive attached to the back of items that inspired you, and how they inspired you, or who gave the item to you and how remembering them helped you
- we begin a correspondence with those for whom we care about decision-making, important knowledge, and life beyond the daily routine
- we digitize and put the information as public domain in an archive
Ultimately we can choose to do this or not, but we should consider our responsibility to the next generations.
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