Today Jason wrote about memory and digital lifestyle, and then this afternoon I found a half-written entry I'd begun about the same topic earlier this year, which I shall now post as if I'd never forgotten about it and had it saved in my digital scrapbook, aka computer:
The amazing thing (OK one of the amazing things) about living a digital media life is the way all kinds of stuff is recorded, even when you don't think about it or mean it to be. For example, I have a lot of ICQ chats saved from 2000, back before I switch to AIM. I would regularly save them, and tonight I was reading through an old one when I stumbled across this message:
Meg
3/27/00 10:42 PM
…today i was laughing hysterically for a bit and had tears coming out of my eyes.jason
3/27/00 10:42 PM
why were you laughing hysterically?Meg
3/27/00 10:44 PM
oh because i had headphones on an ev came over to talk, so i put them around my neck and while he was gabbing away, my brain took over and said, "ugh, these headphones are choking me, i'll move them…hmmm…but where? hmmm…why not over my ears, that'd be the perfect spot" so while ev was talking to me, i just put my headphones back on without even realizing what i was doing…he was pissed…
It's funny because I don't remember that at all, yet it's here in this textual "memory" of mine, and I have MBs and MBs of those memories. Rarely do I revisit them, and when I do, it sure is a trip. I bet there are so many Pyra stories that I've forgotten that would seem so much more interesting now.
From phone numbers to daily office happenings, it's handy to have technology record this stuff we simply don't have the capacity to keep track of ourselves. And in my case, even when we do, I forget about it again.