The blurred scroll evokes nothing.

We have less physical metaphors for cherishing, and destroying, our memories. The tear-stained letter smelling faintly of her perfume; the crumpled photograph at the bottom of the drawer, his face burned out with a cigarette; the note of encouragement, creased from being carried in your pocket as a good luck token, deliberately lost in desktop clutter such that it will be found again, at random, or perhaps, exactly when it is needed.

Once, I dated online, and such was the need for a sense of connection to my physical reality, that I would put on the same scented lip-gloss, play the same album, even wear the same straw hat, just for a sense of presence.

Once, I dated by cell phone, and would lay on my bed with my phone clutched to my chest, dreamily playing the text-message sound. When my phone died and all our text messages were lost, what evidence existed to stand testament, to prove the reality of what we had shared?

We have spent thousands of years learning how to preserve our paper records, and many tragedies occurred before we learned about multiple-copies, acid-free paper, fire-proof boxes, foreign translations; we've tried vellum, and stone, and ritual memorization. So it's no surprise that our digital data will take some time to perfect from obliteration.

I recently copied the contents of my old floppy disk backups onto my external hard drive backup. I found emails that only survived by the grace of not being paper. But I could only read a few of the unsorted thousands before it felt the easy preservation was more of a burden than a pleasure. Events of my past I'd prefer to view through a blur of romantic nostalgia were less enjoyable seen with perfect and unforgiving clarity. Some of the emails were from an ex, and I found that the satisfaction of burning a letter is much more resonant than the dullness of 'deleting'. Even now I have the lingering unease of my multiple, identical backup copies scattered through the years on CDs, hard drives, and cloud. I am doomed to find, and delete, the same emotional booby-traps for years to come. I only have to rip up a paper letter once. Do we want to keep everything, if it means we will never lose anything?

I've attended events where the inevitable digital photo slideshow in the after-party will run longer than had the event itself. I've missed spectacular sights because I was searching for my camera to preserve what I could have just enjoyed. If I was forced to be more selective about which mementos to keep, I could shape a narrative of my life, honor memories by investing time, energy, and money in their presentation. I suspect this is much of the allure of scrapbooking.

When data is both proliferated and obliterated so easily, what role of privacy? I struggle to understand discretion possible only by being too obscure for my leaked data to draw attention, yet what if I become famous, or infamous? What a boon to paparazzi, to bereaved, to law enforcement, to biographers!

I doubt the paper letter will ever entirely fade away, as it has a weight of emotional significance unrivaled by email. Without a backup or backspace, I have to be deliberate in my words and promises. Writing a letter is faith that I'll hold the same ideas and feelings from when it is written to the future when it's delivered; it becomes an artifact of shared time.  Most of all, I find comfort  knowing the paper I hold in my hands, will later be held in the hands of someone I love.

Inspired by: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/magazine/what-happens-when-data-disappears.html