In about Spring of 2005, I was sitting in a workshop on creating and proposing development projects. The training took place in Otavalo, Ecuador, where I had been living for several months. As worthwhile as this workshop was, it was failing to hold my attention, and I began to lose myself in my own thoughts and the trajectory of my life. As usual, when I tried to think of life in abstraction, memories remained distant. I needed context. Perhaps because I was living abroad at that moment, I began to think of the different places I had lived. This was easy enough, as the list consisted of several cities in the US, several in the Dominican Republic and one in Ecuador. This list evolved quickly to include all of the different houses where I had lived in those cities. The evolution continued as I added memorable places in those cities, as well as places I had traveled to, fragments of childhood and adult vacations, niches from my neighborhood growing up, my grandparents’ farms, the school playground, etc. Soon, it became an attempt to identify anywhere I had ever been. Still, some memories remained vague and I needed additional context.

This concreteness came as I remembered and named anyone and everyone that I had shared those places with, roommates, traveling companions, friends, acquaintances, girlfriends, crushes, family, etc. By combining people and places, I uncovered long hidden realms of memory, caches of things we had done together. This wasn’t an exercise in nostalgia or sentimentality. It became a collection of triggers* that illuminated the direction and shape of my life.

Over time, I chronologized the list and I continue to add to it whenever I remember. I’ve never been a fan of diaries (mundane collections of daily events), but I am a huge proponent of journals (meaningful reflections on life experiences). When I find the time, I try to parlay this bare bone version of Google Life, this collection of people and places and what happened there, into more detailed and finely remembered reflections.

So start your Google Life now, it’s even searchable. Though, there are no pop-up video versions of relevant results.

*www.amazon.com/Triggering-Town-Lectures-Essays-Writing/dp/0393309339