I'm scared.

This post starts off on a tangent and then eventually gets to the point.

As none of you know, I'm into ham radio. (CQ CQ de KK4YXV KK4YXV QSL?) I recently obtained a packet radio TNC (terminal node controller), a piece of hardware designed to interface with a terminal and a radio and connect to another TNC-radio-terminal combo somewhere else, for the purpose of transceiving data at around 1200bps. I wanted to fuck around with my new purchase, but alas, it has a DB-25 RS232 port on it, and I have no converter to connect it to my vintage (c. 2012) laptop. So I googled around and tried to find a cheap portable dumb terminal to hook up to it. (I still haven't found one, by the way. Anyone who has one is free to shoot me a PM.) In that process, I found some random forum somewhere - forums.nekochan.net. A 1.5-page thread discussing RS232 dumb terminals. Fair enough. So I went to the home page of the forum to see if there was anything else of use, since the thread in question hadn't been very useful.

Apparently it was a forum about old SGI workstation computers, made circa 1997 or so. (Anyone who remembers the AI from the UserFriendly comic strip will know what I mean.) And they happened to have a couple of off-topic forums, one about Japanese culture and one about everything else. So I started reading through the old posts in those forums, most of whose posts dated back to several years ago. And over the next few days, as I read through those posts, looked through the user profiles, became fascinated with what these people had done, were doing, what they would do, the things they said, and all the other things, I was opening every page with any little tidbit I found, and bookmarking it. I must have accumulated at least 150 bookmarks in the process.

The next morning, I remembered what I'd done, and went to delete those bookmarks. What's another random community in the wind, I thought. But I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

I've found this has become a common theme in my online life. I've got at least 40 fics on FimFic that I've favorited without actually reading, in an attempt to ensure that I don't forget they're there, even though I know for a fact that I'll never get around to reading them. Watching DeviantArt profiles and following Tumblr accounts of clop artists and musicians and RPers who haven't updated their pages in years, in the vain hope that they might return some day and keep going. Keeping bookmarks of old forums which I used to be an active member of, but which have long since moved or been taken down. Keeping Skype contacts and Steam friends that I haven't talked to in years, and who may be dead for all I know.

Why do I do this, you may ask? What motivates me to hold on to the past so much?

Because I'm afraid. I'm afraid of forgetting. I'm scared that if I don't remember these people, who else will? If I don't recall their creative works with a smile and a happy thought, will anyone else ever admire it? Their work deserves to be admired, so I want to make sure it is! I can't let their memory turn to ashes in the wind! I just can't! I'd never forgive myself!

I obsess over the past because I'm scared to death that others' pasts will be forgotten.