Junk to the world, but still, my treasure

Ack. Getting down to it now.

I've thrown out dozens of bags of 'packrat' stuff that looks like you should save it, but will never get used again (think: computer stuff from the last 25 years, like SCSI hard disks, serial port keyboards, memory and harddisk components, manuals, software, work records, presentations, business plans, product plans, 8" FLOPPYS.. god.. 8"" floppys....etc. etc.).

This is somewhat painful. Giving away $2000 suites I never wear anymore? Easy. Throwing away the 1GB SCSI hard drive that has all the records I used to run The OneNet Member Network (a global Apple BBS system I ran in the late 80's and early 90's) ... way hard.

There's HISTORY in them thar drives damnit! I just can't, ya know, turn em on cause nothing runs them anymore.

Sigh.

I think part of what makes giving up stuff like this is it's one of the things that ties us to our past. Things that are just junk to everyone else are oddly precious momento's of your life. Each piece of equipment or hardware part or sofware disk of this junk has a story. Much of it you were involved with (i.e. you help build the damn thing).

Being a computer and software guy vs. a car guy, or instance, can kinda sucks if you think much about it too much.

Why? Your work requires pretty hefty intellectual lifting and is very quickly devalued by a product cycle that lasts, at most, months. A 59 Chevy is still cool to pretty much everyone- even almost 50 years later. A 1GB hard drive with the software and a snapshot of all the postings and messages of an early pre-internet global store and forward BBS system? Not so cool. Yea, to a tiny fraction of the population, maybe. But even then 'cool' isn't the right word. more like 'interesting'.

Of course there's the ethereal reality that what you did has been built on by others and you have, for instance, the internet to show for it. But no one knows that really but you and a samll group of your friends and colleagues.

And all the thought stuff. Business plans, presentations, product plans, strategies... just throwing them out.

A sampling:
- Here's Apple's Online Services business plan... Imagine if Apple had gotten behind this in earnest? There would have been something very different than AOL dominating the online world for half a decade or longer.

-Hmmm.. General Magic's long term strategy. Still secret I see. Not only do I throw it out.. I can't even TALK about it.

- Paramounts "The Gateway" plan to build small local servers into every Blockbuster store (both companies owned by Viacom at the time) to create a low cost 'local dial in' alternative to AOL and a way to eventually distribute media (music and movies) as infrastructure built out. -

Trash.

- MCI's strategic plan to build a Global Network Operating System on top of it's massive IP network. Global services that you can just plug your business into to get directories, security, voip, etc. etc.... 3 years of work there.

Here's an Apple Newton with prototype eWorld messaging my group designed and built into it.

Trash.

Lots of good stuff in here to that actually became successful products and services. But all, still, long gone. Replaced by better, faster, cheaper.

In the end: Trash. Trash Trash. All of it trash.

Certainly puts everything in perspective eh?

I think this is one reason people don't de-materialize. This is frakin hard to do. It's litereally taking all of the things that remind you of your past and who you are and tossing them out. The only value they have is to you, but what value, really?

When I think about it, they really are things to simply learn from, build on and move on with that knowledge safely tucked away in your head. The reason for keeping it all is to 'maybe reference it' in the future sometime. Right. That's gonna happen.

So, in the end, all the material representations of all this good thinking, creation, hard work, great people, it really is just stuff.

Stuff I just don't need following me around anymore.

Treasures in my mind; great memories; many good times, but, to the rest of the world: junk to be tossed out.

And now, for me, it's time to take out the trash.