Lost fragment
While preparing "I and myself" for this blog, I noticed that part of a text I wrote, and was proud of, was missing; the version that exists is pieced together from fragments I sent to friends when I first wrote it.
The file exists, and I recognize the title, but its contents are alien, gutted. I am gutted.
The unwelcome text is now a task description for a technical interview I had when applying for my current position. In my panic at the start of the interview, I must have copied the tasks to my machine with my note-taking app and simply repurposed the note that was open.
This interview eventually led me to the current job. I remember being really happy about my performance after the interview ended. Full of adrenaline, jumping around my place, being proud of my achievement. Not realizing I had doomed a text I was once so proud of.
How can a text be so easily forgotten? Thrown away, forgotten. How could I forget to undo my mistake when I no longer needed the tasks on disk? The task description stopped mattering as soon as the interview ended. But what about me?
I ask myself: why did it have to be that one? Why couldn't I simply create a blank note to paste the tasks into? The joke here is that I didn't even look at the text I copied to my machine! I simply went back to the web-hosted document they had shared with me.
I lost a piece of myself.
One string of characters replaced by another string of characters. Committed to memory silently. A phase change of electrons, synced with the phase of my mood; excited, deleted.
I cry for ephemeral memories.
How often do we think about the texts we have written down? Our journal entries, written at moments when we felt feelings, or felt the absence of them, and poured ourselves into the prose.
How often do you revisit good memories? The good ol' days. Important memories that made you, you. Did you write them down? If so, please go read them, read them out loud, feel them, share them! Share them with everyone you know! Take note. Share them with your neighbours, your colleagues, your cat or your fish. Go back while you can! Words are also mortal.
Words on paper. Words on metal. Words from flesh.
Those words, an impression of yourself on the page; they are as much you as you are them. Isn't it sad when we are distracted from them? It's sad to lose memories, lose parts of yourself, forgotten. I have an image of meeting myself as a child, and we don't recognise each other; the horror!
Oh, my dear lost text, how much I miss you. How much pride you brought me. You opened doors for me, you brought me closer to self realisation. You showed me compassion, and became my companion for the short while I spent writing you.
Rest in peace, my dear. I will write more in your memory.
Your loss was not for naught: as a preventive measure, I will set up proper backups and versioning for my journal notes, so this never happens again. It might save the lives of many more texts, and since I realised their fragility, I appreciate my texts even more.
shedding skin. tail bitten off. counting chickens.
Maybe it's not so bad to be lost once in a while. I love you.
Update, 29 October 2026: I found the full text. It is whole again in I and myself.