d: I’m taking photos of the t-shirts’ tattered patterns.
Like the free marathon t-shirts I’ve gotten, d’s also accumulated a good collection from the company workshops and open-source conferences he’d attended, which were quickly taking up much space.
d: Do you remember photos were of the items emptied from the backpack? Nice that we have digital photos now.
He’s referring to Ryan’s speech from Up in the Air (2009), and Ryan was likely referring to physical photo albums.
“What do you want to take out of it? Photos? Photos are for people who can’t remember. Drink some ginko and let the photos burn.”
I was concerned with the thousands of photos sitting in my Album, completely unorganized. Even Apple had recently reminded me, Storage Full, of how long it’s been since I last backed them up to my personal drive.
For a while, I had been good at clearing out my Album. It gave me a sense of progress and detox–a prevention from fidgeting over whether to change a profile picture or post a dump, the sort of trivialities I fixate on when I am self-obsessed. Lately, though, I’ve only cleared out the camera memory cards for practical reasons. The Album has become a cluster dump of momentary happiness, snapshots of online inquires, and lost relationships.
Was it really worth my time to revisit them? Ryan’s speech about photos still stands, if not weighing more heavily on our backs, thanks to smartphone cameras.
P.S. Wouldn’t it be nice if Q could filter and sort them; delete the multiples, the screenshots of unread books, and faces I no longer can name.