Even after throwing out lots of papers when I turned 70 (see my essay “To Throw or Save”), there are still file cabinets stuffed with papers.
I already have laboriously scanned in many papers and photos to my computer. These documents are arranged neatly in file folders. In my computer, for example, there are files of old calendars, budgets, computer ideas, scanned photos (prior to the year 2000), essays, genealogy and family documents.
I have two choices, it seems. On the one hand, I can just not do anything with the papers and, after I die, people can throw out what they want. On the other hand, I can throw away the papers now so as to relieve my descendants of the problem of throwing things away later.
Up to yesterday, I had a great excuse for not dealing with those myriad papers. There was no way I was going to scan in all those papers. At the speed of my scanner, that could take years.
Yesterday, however, I made a discovery with my iPhone camera. I noticed that I could take clear photos of documents at a rapid pace by just allowing the camera to focus on a document before snapping the picture. By making a pile of papers, and by licking my index finger to move to the next paper, I could snap photos of papers at the incredible speed of approximately 2 seconds per page. What excuse did I have now for not photographing my papers and then tossing them in the garbage?
Wait a minute. Why am I saving all those documents on my computer’s external hard drive? Is it because I think that, after I die, someone might be interested in looking at page 26 of my 1997 tax return? Or is it because someone might be curious to read the story of how my mother’s grandparents came to America? What if no one is interested in what I saved?
Maybe I’m keeping computer files because I have a need to make a complete package of my life. After I am gone, I WILL STILL EXIST. Not as a legend on the silver screen, but as a legend on the gigabytes on my hard drive.
Now the question is, “How to preserve the hard drive for millennium to come?”
Mr. Ebsen may be contacted at Robertebsen@hotmail.com
