July 29, 2007

• If your house was burning down and you only had time to save one thing, what would it be?

  Nothing. 

  That’s what I would have said a few days ago.  I mean there isn’t anything really important here. I’ve got all kinds of junk but who needs any of it. 

  I suppose I could grab my hard drive. But really I’ve gotten to the point where a much more serious concern for me is if something were to happen to google’s servers than my own personal computer. I mean all of my emails are on gmail, all of my pictures on picasaweb, and a large chunk of my writing on google docs. Xanga going down would suck too for obvious reasons.

  I’ve got a thumb drive with passwords and junk but I can’t imagine that wouldn’t already be in my pocket (same goes for my keys and my wallet and by cellphone) but even if it wasn’t so what if I have to go to each and every business I interact with and prove my identity? That’s annoying but irrelevant. I mean it’d be tough to prove I’m me, my SS card would have burned up too, as would any pay stubs and other identity verifying documents, but I’m up for the challenge. In fact it might be cool to be completely forgotten, have no way to prove my identity and be like a person who doesn’t exist. It might be easier than dealing with the bills. If my keys, wallet, and cellphone burn up too, well good riddance to those too. All that stuff can easily be restored.

  Looking around at the other things I own. I’ve got a million burned CDs and DVDs with various cool things I’ve found and saved online, especially lots of anime, and it would suck to lose those. I’ve got lots of video games and movie and tv series dvds I’ve purchased that I quite love and it would be painful to lose those. But really not so much. One day I’d just buy them all again.

  My huge magic collection. Now that would really suck. That’s a significant monetary investment that would go down the drain. But then I’ve got a big online collection too so I guess I’d just switch to that once I acquired a new computer. I never really collected magic cards for their value anyway. I collected them because the game is fun.

  My mp3 player would be painful to lose, but music is easy to come by. It would just take time (and few scruples about downloading mp3s on p2p networks). I’ve got board games lying around, my Wii game system, various other cool toys  I wish I could keep. But it’d be impossible to choose one over the other. So better to say good bye to them all. Favorite clothing. Favorite shoes. Favorite chair. Calculator. Camera. Television. Maybe that sandwhich I half finished today? Nah. None of them appeal to me very much.

  Some picture? Some momento? Something that reminds me of the people I
  care about and the things that matter to me? I can’t think of anything.
  Sure there are a lot of memory inspiring things around me, but none of
  them are so important that it would kill me to part with them. I’d be
  sad sure whenever I think about them but the memories are what I really
  cherished and they are still in my head and I can preserve them
  throughout all time in my writing, or at least preserve them as long as google’s servers don’t go down.

  Now something perishable like a bottle of aspirin, that’s a serious
  consideration. I’d imagine I’m going to have quite the headache
  re-establsihing order in my life after such a traumatic experience. 
  Still, I probably wouldn’t even grab that. Dealing with the pain might
  actually make me feel better. It’s a useful distraction.

  The books would be the worst. So many books I love would be lost.  Seriously, if you absolutely forced me to make a choice, rather than take nothing, my second choice would probably be whatever book I happened to be reading at the time. I love reading that much. I’d take that book just so I can finish it. Just so it will relieve the stress of worrying about what is going to happen next both in the book and in my own life. If that’s today then the book would be Freakonomics which is pretty decent. Yesterday it would have been Harry Potter 7, which was great.

  But if nothing is a viable option, a few days ago I would definitely have chosen nothing. I think it is a good idea to make a clean break. To discard all worldly possessions and remove all connections to my past life. Why would I take something that just serves as a reminded of all the rest that I had lost? That would be torture. Easier to be just me out in the world and think of it as starting over fresh.

  So yeah, I would have taken nothing at all.  But then a few days ago I got a beautiful hand written thank you note from a total stranger thanking me for something nice I had done. It’s a reminder that the good that I do sometimes actually means something to someone other than me. That’s something I always feel uncertain about and often convince myself isn’t true. Some tangible proof that it is true, however trivial the cause, it means a lot. So, now I think I’d take that.

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  • 1:14 am
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