Creating a vademecum

In a book, Fictions, by Jorge Luis Borges, the word vademecum is used. I had not heard this word before. It comes from the Latin vade mecum, meaning come with me.

The word means something like a handbook or manual, but I am thinking of it as something more like a place to store all of the information I might reasonably need.

In essence: something to replace the internet.

See, I engage very wastefully with the internet. I think many of us do. I will search something, forget it, and then search it again. If I need directions, I will use maps online to try find where to go.

Yet, a lot of this is information I should already have to hand. I go on the tubes in London a lot, for instance; I shouldn't need to have to relook up which line Tottenham Court Road or Notting Hill Gate is on each time I ride the tube. This is information that I should have on my person. In a vademecum.

This is somewhat similar, I think, to a commonplace book. I think people use commonplaces more for writing quotations and other things that are spiritually helpful, and which are read; I want things that are concretely helpful.

I want a place to write down how to tie a tie, or that have the Latin declensions and conjugations, or the stops along the Central line. I want a place to write down interesting new words I read, and a place to write down the common chords on a mandolin or guitar. I want a place to write down translations of words in Italian, or German, or Japanese, and a place to write phone numbers and e-mail addresses of friends and family and establishments.

Basically, a way to no longer need to use the internet quite so much. A place to store the information that I use very often.

Will it replace the internet? Of course not! For instance, if I need to look up new words, I will use the internet for that; once I've found it, however, it will go into the vademecum, and then I will have it on my person whenever wherever.

In a sense, this is perhaps similar to a compendium. I suppose compendia are more about specific topics; this is used for general day-to-day knowledge and is not for learning a given subject.

I've ordered a new Leuchtturm notebook, which I found very good last time I used one. I will use this for creating my vademecum, and hopefully it can be another step in moving away from the internet, if only a little bit.