Shredding the past

Just spent about the last hour shredding old documents of what-have-you. It would have been more fun to burn, but that’s not very 21st century like.

Mostly, I got rid of old printed out copies of resumes and cover letters and rejection letters (or non-acceptance letters) of the colleges and universities I’d applied to work for. But I also shredded advice on how to write more effective resumes and cover letters and how to be more effective at interviews (blah, blah, blah. Like any of that worked.)

It felt kind of nice to get rid of all that. Like letting go of the past a bit. I know people say that’s good to do sometimes. It does seem more natural to live in the present, but a lot of our technologies allow the past to stay with us. Well, at least documents and photographs.

I sometimes wonder if it wouldn’t be better not to have photographs. Are we really meant to be faced with that kind objective reality? Because, like, when I look at an old photograph, it’s often different than my memory of the event. A memory allows you to perceive things differently and it keeps the past in the past.

I know it’s difficult to be one-sided about photos. Because, it can be nice to be reminded of people that are important to you, especially when you aren’t near them. But on the other hand, some photos I don’t look at anymore because I don’t want to be reminded of the way things were but aren’t anymore.

I suppose I could argue that I have some power over this technology in that I have the choice whether or not to look at old photographs. (Of course, I thought that way about this blog, but it turned out I didn’t have that power...which is why I had to “shred” the first two seasons. Now Seasons 1 and 2 are posted as non-chronological memories.)

The memory is easier to manage than what really happened. And what good is it really to drag the objective past with you if it’s already gone?

The present really is all we have.