Have you done anything to change the world? I'm serious. Think about it. I bet you've done something that had a major impact on someone else's life. We all have. What's yours?

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2000

Answers

"There are many reasons for keeping a diary: to make a note of facts that one considers important; to open one's heart, to give vent to one's feelings, to make confessions; from the instinct of economy which sometimes encourages a writer to make good use of even the smallest crumbs of his life, so that he may have one more book to publish; or again from vanity and self-satisfaction." -- Alberto Moravia, __The_Lie__, (London: Secker & Warburg, 1966. Tr. Angus Davidson). p. 7.

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2000

"Some for renown, on scraps of learning dote
and think they grow immortal as they quote."
--Edward Young

Anyway, I choose reasons 1, 2, 3, and 6 from that list. If I wanted to make confessions, I'd still be a practicing Catholic, and I'm not particularly interested in ever getting published, so scratch that, but the rest of them sound pretty good. Right on.

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2000

I don't think I've done anything to change the world, yet. Or maybe I am just not aware of what I've done. This summer, I contemplated the question, "what will people say about me, when i'm gone?" after watching my grandmother die, and attending her funeral. Many people, including myself, stood up at her funeral to speak of the impact she had made in our lives, and what her life, and the way she lived it, had taught us. I'm not sure my goal is to bring world peace, or find the cure for cancer.. but I would like to have been a positive force in people's lives.

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2000