Comments on: What historians don’t pathologize.

By: Kathryn Bjornstad

Kathryn Bjornstad — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 09:43:05 +0000

I didn’t know there was a word for that. I sometimes compulsively write lists that I don’t need, or invent reasons to create lists. Then I get embarrassed by my lists and destroy them so no one sees them.

By: Justthisguy

Justthisguy — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 22:58:08 +0000

Sometimes I wish that I were hypergraphic. I cannot count the number of times I started to keep a diary, and failed to keep it up. As I get older, and my memory doesn’t work as well as it used to do, I do wish that I had detailed diaries of what I have done in the past.

By: ther1

ther1 — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 15:33:31 +0000

I enjoy writing lists as well. I make short stories based in a fantasy world I’ve created-the characters are from my dreams, and oddly, as I write more about them, their characters reveal layers of complexity in my own mind that I didn’t realize were present when I dreamed them up.

As I develop a more socially mature outlook, the stories gain psychological depth. I would call the more literary incarnations of hypergraphia good ways to explore your own mind; years later, you can look at what you wrote and be glad for the progress you’ve made.

By: Laurentius Rex

Laurentius Rex — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 21:50:02 +0000

Well as Prince William Henry (we used to have a pub named after him in Foleshill) said to the author of Rome’s decline and fall

“Allways scribble scribble eh Mr Gibbon?” Now there was a historian :)

By: Ruth

Ruth — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 21:43:50 +0000

I pretty much stopped keeping a diary because I relaised I was filling it with boring details. I’d write two or more sides of A4 per day at times. Now I just write a summary of the year near the end of each year or the beginning of the new year.

A difficulty I can’t beat is a compulsive need to read, reread, rereread, and so on, my own writing. Doesn’t matter if it’s e-mails or articles I’ve written, whatever, and that’s far more dead-ended than hypergraphia.

By: Astrid

Astrid — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 11:22:05 +0000

Well that’s a good thing that historians at least don’t pathologize hypergraphia. Now let’s wait for the medical profession to follow suit.

By: Marge

Marge — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 08:34:54 +0000

I was reading a history book in which the author was trying to encourage people to keep diaries, recollections and just generally write things down, for exactly that reason.