(no subject)
Sometimes I wonder whether I'd be better off "losing" certain things I've written, rather than saving them indefinitely for posterity (or whatever other reason).
The event that prompted this statement is a semi-bizarre one. For reasons too convoluted and irrelevant to go into, I was doing various Googles of the numerous names in my life, both real and pseudo, to see what kind of results I'd get. (It's amazing how many dopplegangers my names have out there.)
Anyway, a few of the results pointed to entries I'd written on various blogs. And since I was curious, I'd click on them to see what they were exactly.
What I discovered is that, in a matter of one or two paragraphs, I found myself being transported, mentally and emotionally, back to the time I'd written the piece. Which, if it was a fun and/or otherwise positive time, is great. Unfortunately, for one particular case, it was one of the more traumatic experiences of the past few years.
I had happily forgotten about the event, and wasn't particularly keen on reliving it. But upon reading my past entry about it, it all came back to me in a rather uncomfortable rush.
Now I'm trying to take my mind off it (yeah, by obsessing about it further, what's your point?), otherwise I might have bad dreams about it when I go to bed, and I'd rather not. But it got me to thinking: perhaps I would be better off deleting certain online texts of mine that I no longer wish to have a record of. Even if it was well-written, or important to me at the time, or whatever, do I really need to risk stumbling upon it again in the future? Especially if I've (consciously) gotten over it?
It's a tough decision for me, because I'm a packrat in every sense of the word, and that includes anything I've written/drawn/created. Perhaps if I printed a hardcopy if I really didn't want to lose it forever, and then deleted it online. At least then if I come across it, it will be... um, on paper. Which I'm not sure how it would be any better, but still... it's the only idea I have at the moment.
I'm interested to hear whether anyone else has run into this situation themselves. Have you ever decided that you'd rather not see something you'd written ever again? And not because you didn't like how you wrote it, but because it addressed something you didn't want to deal with again emotionally? And did you delete it, or just avoid looking at older stuff?
I'm not saying I want to pretend it never happened. I think I might just want to not see it on Google. ':P
The event that prompted this statement is a semi-bizarre one. For reasons too convoluted and irrelevant to go into, I was doing various Googles of the numerous names in my life, both real and pseudo, to see what kind of results I'd get. (It's amazing how many dopplegangers my names have out there.)
Anyway, a few of the results pointed to entries I'd written on various blogs. And since I was curious, I'd click on them to see what they were exactly.
What I discovered is that, in a matter of one or two paragraphs, I found myself being transported, mentally and emotionally, back to the time I'd written the piece. Which, if it was a fun and/or otherwise positive time, is great. Unfortunately, for one particular case, it was one of the more traumatic experiences of the past few years.
I had happily forgotten about the event, and wasn't particularly keen on reliving it. But upon reading my past entry about it, it all came back to me in a rather uncomfortable rush.
Now I'm trying to take my mind off it (yeah, by obsessing about it further, what's your point?), otherwise I might have bad dreams about it when I go to bed, and I'd rather not. But it got me to thinking: perhaps I would be better off deleting certain online texts of mine that I no longer wish to have a record of. Even if it was well-written, or important to me at the time, or whatever, do I really need to risk stumbling upon it again in the future? Especially if I've (consciously) gotten over it?
It's a tough decision for me, because I'm a packrat in every sense of the word, and that includes anything I've written/drawn/created. Perhaps if I printed a hardcopy if I really didn't want to lose it forever, and then deleted it online. At least then if I come across it, it will be... um, on paper. Which I'm not sure how it would be any better, but still... it's the only idea I have at the moment.
I'm interested to hear whether anyone else has run into this situation themselves. Have you ever decided that you'd rather not see something you'd written ever again? And not because you didn't like how you wrote it, but because it addressed something you didn't want to deal with again emotionally? And did you delete it, or just avoid looking at older stuff?
I'm not saying I want to pretend it never happened. I think I might just want to not see it on Google. ':P