In his latest article @Infinity announced a new topic to write about - one's biggest fears. For many of us (including myself) there is nothing worse than losing our loved ones or them getting very sick. We also fear losing our money and home, and for a good reason. However, there are some other fears, too - though not as major. I have been writing about technology, so I will ponder on the topic from the perspective of digital data and devices.
I have been taking photos in the past 15 years, the vast majority of which have been on digital cameras. Not long ago I got interested in film photography, however, I don't rely on my negatives alone. I scan them and look at the resultant image. These photos are memories, and memories form who we are. Thankfully, so far I haven't suffered major data losses, however, I did lose some dear photos of a pet that passed away soon after I accidentally deleted photos that hadn't been backed up. I have a file server with redundancy - data gets spread to two hard disks. I don't do that manually but it happens at a hardware level, it's called a redundant array of inexpensive disks (RAID) array. This configuration ensures that if one hard disk fails, the other should contain my data. Yet, I don't feel confident enough and I also back up my important photos to Backblaze (not an advertisement). Yes, I pay about $20 a month for that, yet if something goes wrong, I would still have something left. I would still lose plenty but I can't afford to back up 10 TB.
This brings me to the topic of fears of loss and memories. Throughout our life we go through various events, we gather skills and experiences and they inevitably shape who we are. If I were to end up in an accident and lost my memory, how do I know who and what I am? I would need to re-learn how to interact with the world, whom I can trust, what mistakes I am supposed to avoid. I need to know how human society works, what is acceptably, what is expected of me. Not to mention that my life experience would be lost. Intelligence is important and gives a head start, it helps performing tasks faster, however, it does not replace experience. Hard work can take you far unless you are truly gifted, but those geniuses are so few that we can exclude them from this discussion. Intelligence is a tool that helps you dig deep but owning a digging machine doesn't mean you'll reach the centre of the Earth.
Photos bring back memories from past events and prevents forgetting important moments and details. Just by looking into some old photos I feel like I'm re-living the moment and experience the same feelings. Also, it strengthens the memory in my head and it can casually come back even if I don't actively try to recall it. I would be devastated if someone stole my computer, or my data is not recoverable or a natural disaster destroys my home. Yes, I am materialistic. But materialistic doesn't imply greedy and money-thirsty. It's a way of feeling safe. It gives something familiar to lean on. Doesn't it?
That's really a massive fear for me Loss of memory, I can never imagine waking up and I don't remember anything