James Robertson: The Fanatic

He felt a growing need to sum up, to explain, to record his thoughts and his memories. He was - even in his thirties - entering his middle age.

(John Lauder, p 286)

I have been keeping various diaries since high school, but as early as after college I would every now and then attempt to whittle down these records of particular periods of my life into mere summaries that would simply give the general outline and only briefly mention the most notable details.