I heard a story on NPR yesterday about the increasingly common experience of being confronted with information from the past thanks to the Internet. It was the usual rundown of how past blog posts, discussion forum entries, email and other pieces of writing were stored in various net nooks and crannies and could reappear at inconvenient times. True enough. The “expert” who was being interviewed posited that it is nearly impossible to prevent this from happening and that as a culture we are coming to terms with these technological changes. Essentially, her message went, we are becoming more and more accustomed to these reminders and will eventually stop paying significant attention to them.

I think there’s a more important possibility– perhaps not being able to lose all of these old words and thoughts should lead to more attention. Perhaps it would be a good thing if more of us would remember who we were and not just accept the inherently flawed assumption that losing touch with those passionate feelings and reckless outbursts is a good thing. Maybe the real tragedy is that those days are not prolonged and we are so eager to forget our youthful enthusiasm and impetuousness.

At least sometimes…