Metadata is the stuff of life, the art that makes life even more interesting. I think in language, you could refer to them as contextual data.
You went to a restaurant to eat. The meal was delicious and you enjoyed it. To retell the experience to yourself, you could say, “Oh, the meal was delicious and I enjoyed it.” And that would be true. But only as true as saying David bought a book from this store… and nothing more.
You could, however, retell it as Raymond Reddington would – a TV character from the acclaimed Blacklist who embodies the idea of a life rich in metadata collection and usage.
“On a windy winter noon, on the highlands of Jersey, I’d been bitten by the wind, and all I could imagine was shelter under a warm roof, with good classical music, food available, couples admiring each other at their tables, kids being kids at adult tables. Most importantly, being served sumptuous hot meals made by the best Mediterranean chefs. And that was what I got as I walked into XYZ restaurant. The food, oh, was delicious; my mum’s dish will have a lot of work to do to compare…”
Well, what happened in that description is that someone gathered metadata about the meal, just as a store manager would gather metadata about David’s purchase of a book at the store: day of purchase, time of purchase, size of the purchase, how many items were surveyed before the purchase, what the payment method was, etc.
I think a life filled with metadata is a rich life.
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