Q

I still keep a schedule in physical form. 

Standard school-issue journals throughout my convent school days might have a role in shaping this habit in my formative years. In JC when diaries weren’t given out, i became a loyal fan of Muji weekly planners.

Sometimes i do wonder why i’ve not exported my days over to electronic planners. It is indisputably more convenient: there are too many times event changes upset me not so much for the schedule disruption than the ugly cancel marks it’s gonna make on my planner. Haha. It’s more accessible, more compact, more flexible.

But i’ve stuck with my physical planner. I’ve always thought it was habit, but it really doesn’t explain my stubborn refusal to switch platforms. Then it struck me: i have an implicit fear that one day digital data will collapse upon itself from its sheer immensity.

I’m not sure how irrational this fear is, but as a child of the computer age – having been there for the birth and frightening acceleration of e-advancement – i am inherently wary of its sustainability.

I straddle the ridge between hardcopy world of mountain, sun, and organic daisy fields, that drops into a dark, mystical, swirly void of digital data. I’m too young to stay independent of such technology in my daily life, but too old to be free of all skepticism.

Sometimes i’d stop and think about all that data i have in my Mac. The dozens of files, the hundreds of documents and images, millions and millions of words. I am overwhelmed just by the sheer amount of information contained in my laptop. I am often petrified imagining the total informational weight of the internet.

I guess my question is how. How is it possible that humanity exploded into this hyper-intelligent species capable of condensing so much into so little? I am equal parts impressed and suspicious. There is no way my fear that all my digital notes, blog entries, and photos may one day drain into oblivion from a single binary coding glitch.

Maybe a century from now someone might read this and laugh at the awe and unwarranted anxiety experienced by a person tentatively rooting into the infant years of computer technology. Or maybe no one will read this because somewhere down the road a plug is pulled and all we’ve coded online tumbles into a digital sink hole.