YOU are the Lost Generation. Did you know this? Did you know that your history has not been written down? That your photos and writings are momentary?
There is a photo of Billy the Kid from 1880 that will most likely be around long after you have shuffled off this mortal coil. That photo will still be around long after the Corpo tech masters shut down your Instagram, Facebook, Google Photos, Apple Photos, or (INSERT cloud site or app you keep your pictures on HERE). That photo will outlast your entire legacy because it is physical and part of the real world.
Meanwhile, We the People live our lives in the digital world of 1’s and 0’s that require someone’s servers to be up and running. For us to last on beyond our time, someone has to manage the digital or all of it just vanishes when the power button is turned off. History blown out like a candle’s flame.
The same goes for all of my writing, your writing, our writing… Unless we have a physical book somewhere, the digital state will one day be turned off. Take Paramount’s recent removal of more than 2 decades of MTV News digital content. Articles, interviews, photos… ALL GONE (Read the story HERE). History that was not written down in physical form anywhere, extinguished with the press of a button. Did it every really happen?
On a side note… I developed my theory of a Hyborean Age (Thanks Robert E. Howard writer of Conan) nearly 2 decades ago (long before I had ever heard of Graham Hancock - watch his stuff. Start with his Netflix doc) from watching the show Ancient Aliens. I felt like they were onto something but they chose Aliens for their focus when everything was much more plausible if humanity had once had a more advanced society. If there was an advance society before the ice age, in this Hyborean age, nothing but stone would be left of it. Even steel structures would be gone by now. If they had some form of digital chronicle, it would be lost to the decay of history. Is history now repeating itself?
My advice:
Make physical copies of your cherished photos.
Buy physical media of movies, TV shows, and music.
Print out writings you want preserved.
Don’t allow the digital world to make reality but a dream.
Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.
-George Santayana
So too…
Those who embrace the digital future, are doomed to repeat the past.
-The Bone Writer
I've been obsessively printing out projects and putting stuff on CD, for years. Wish it were cheaper to do more of it, actually. Great article.