A frustrating issue came up when I was using Adobe Reader to e-sign a government PDF document on my MacBook, and I had to get the ThinkPad T430S I used 4 years ago. It’s an interesting experience.
It sometimes happens to people that an old song coming up from nowhere suddenly brings back the life he or she had a long time ago. “Wow! I used to keep listening to this song all day long! But now I don’t even remember it until it suddenly pops up!” The emotions and feelings he used to have suddenly flood through him, make him wonder “why was I feeling so different 5 years ago? What’s been changed?!” The answer is almost everything.
An old computer does exactly the same thing, but only in a more vivid way. In the beginning, it felt like an adventure in an unknown space – there are so many files that I don’t even remember that I had. However, the moment a file was opened, it became so familiar that I remembered every single detail about it. It made me wonder “how on earth did I forget this completely?”
Scanning through the directories, I remembered the things I was working on during those years, the concerns and desires I had, the people I was thinking of and caring for. “That movie is fun! I should watch it again sometime.” “Oh a lot of materials for my thesis! Seems I did a lot than I remembered…” “Sigh, it never happened no matter how carefully I planned.” At one moment, it felt like I time-traveled to 5 years ago, sitting in front of the same computer, but in a completely different place.
Everything was so familiar, but at the same time so distant. I recalled the time and effort I spent carefully organizing all those things on this old laptop, but none of them matters anymore.
It’s kind of a cliche. Everyone just marches on.