My husband just received another box from one of his brothers containing papers from their late grandfather. JFK Brown was a mining engineer who worked with the Canadian government in World War I and the US government in World War II cataloging resources that could be used for the war effort. The box we received included a notebook with resource information from the 1930s. I imagine when JFK Brown was creating the notebook, he had no idea that eighty years later one of his descendants would consider it a priceless artifact.
I have no expectations that the journals I am writing during the coronavirus pandemic will become priceless. I do imagine that they will become a treasure of a sort, even if the only response anyone reading it decades from now has is, “Boy, did she get things wrong!” The act of cataloging, recording, and remembering is a gift to the future. If it turns out to be a gag gift, well, what generation can’t use a good laugh?