I was wondering if I’m the only one who, from time to time, enjoys going back and reading my old blog posts, sometimes for hours at a time…
Every now and then I get an urge to look back a bunch of months or even years ago and reread things I wrote on my blog, main web site, or elsewhere, particularly my more extensive pieces where I really worked hard to convey my opinions about certain anime topics.
I’m not sure how many other people do this, but for me it’s like I’m visiting my past self. When I read my posts from months or years ago, I’m revisiting thoughts and feelings I had at the time (since my posts are not objective episode-by-episode coverage or anime news items). Usually I unconsciously compare them to the thoughts and feelings I have now. It’s a really good self reflection exercise; when I go back and read posts I wrote let’s say in 2006 or 2007, or anime information pages from my main site that I wrote in 2003, I could think, “Hmm, I still believe that now,” or “what was I thinking back then?,” or “maybe I should have said it like this,” or “damn my writing sucked back then,” or “guess I didn’t know back then what I know now.” It’s interesting to see whether my opinions, or even parts of my personality, change with time or not, and also how my writing skills evolve. For example, looking back at the stuff I wrote in my high school and early college years is quite nostalgic, and as I read what I wrote, I reflect on things that were going on with me back then, whether in anime or real life. Even reading the short little paragraphs in the updates archive of my now 7+ year old web site where I would write not only the new things I added that day, but a thing or two about what was going on in my life at the time, are worthwhile to me now. I even enjoy reading posts I wrote only a month or a few weeks ago. I reexamine what I was thinking at the time and study my writing techniques, since I’m always trying to improve.
My friend 2DT once wrote a post about how, since so many things we do nowadays have been digitalized, our written and artistic works among other things, there’s very little tangible material for us to leave behind for future generations as proof of who we were. When I look back on my old blog posts and other things I’ve written in the past, I realize that the computer holds all of the many pieces of writing that I’m proud of and could tell so much about myself to those who would read them. Therefore, I’m taking extra care to save all the posts, text-heavy pages of my web site, and all other “digital shards of myself” on more than one hard drive. Looking back at my old writings is interesting to me even now, but I wonder how I would feel rereading them thirty, forty, or even fifty years from now.
Times certainly have changed. In the old days, people would leave behind only tangible traces of their life, i.e., their handwritten works or art pieces on paper or other physical means only. Now it’s possible for these things to be left behind as data on a computer only. So instead of piecing together a person’s life by collecting their handwritten memoirs, the same can be done by reading through their “digital memoirs” via blog posts, web site updates, etc,. But I wonder, will files saved on a computer in 2010 still be accessible to people on a computer in 2310? If computer data from three centuries ago is too archaic to be read on a computer of the present, what will happen to everyone who only had digital copies of their life’s works and not physical ones? Will memory of all but the most famous people simply fade away? I suppose only time will tell…but of course, anyone reading this now won’t be around to know just how far into the future they’ll be remembered.
No. And that reminds me to edit my old blog posts because images are dead and there are some spam comments!
Normally, no, I don’t reread my old posts. At least not for fun. Sometimes I hunt for them to look for what I might have said on a subject in an earlier time, mostly to help me in the writing of a more current article. Like you I’ve had the experience of looking at something 1, 2 years old and thinking–I wrote that? Other times, it also keeps me humble: I sometimes see things I wrote or predicted which turned out to be laughably wrong in hindsight or a hasty prejudgment. My first impression of Kimikiss is perhaps the biggest one I can think of–I turned into a big fan of the show not long afterwards.
Even discs go dead one day. Rather quickly, actually. But that just goes to show how transient life is.
I’m still trying to figure it out, actually.
Actually, you’re never alone on this one. I mean, we’ve got a lot of reasons for us to trackback and have our little moment of nostalgia or whatnot about it. For me, it was really good, and humbly speaking, life-changing, since the way I blogged before is very, very much the opposite of how I blog now. I got good and bad reception, I changed some of my ways, and for some reason, reading back not only brings back memories, but also opens more room for improvement, if not for the blog, for oneself.
Haha I was thinking the same thing recently. I hardly do it, but there are times when I click on an old post for reference to something, and suddenly find myself reading it and thinking, “Damn, did I write this?” A good comparison, but not wise to do too often for most people.
@Mike
Yeah, I sometimes look back at things I wrote that are now wrong or obsolete. For blog posts, I try to resist the urge to change or delete them, simply because they’re good representations of my past thinking. Sometimes I’ll just slip a little “UPDATED” notice on the post to show that I now understand the information to be wrong but it’s still available to read.
@2DT
I have a handful of CD and DVD-roms that are now dead. That’s why I started saving things on hard drives now rather than discs but even those could go bad some day. Most tangible artifacts can survive for centuries but the same can’t be said for digital data. Wonder what kind of a future that will lead to.
@Shance
Exactly, it’s nostalgic and a great way to try and improve yourself.
Whoa, I’d heard CDs and DVDs eventually expired, but… you’ve had some that died already? I thought it was supposed to take decades for a disc to wear out. Geh! Back to paper hard copies. ;)
@ Jan
Yeah, a handful of them have gotten corrupt, a few because they got scratched, and for the others, I’m not really sure. The disc burner on my desktop computer has issues sometimes, so that’s probably a factor. For the past couple of years I’ve been saving my anime and important things on an external hard drive, which will hopefully last a long time.